180 THE ATLANTIC. [chap, i v. 



are tidy and have a well-to-do look. Many of the houses be- 

 longing to the agents of the Falkland Islands Company and to 

 the representatives of several private firms have very pretty 

 greenhouses attached to them, the gay groups of fuchsias and 

 pelargoniums of all the best home varieties contrasting pleas- 

 antly with the desolation outside. The Government barrack, 

 occupied by an ofhcer and a company of marines, is rather an 

 imposing structure, with a square tower, in the middle of the 

 town ; and there is a neat little Episcopal church. 



The Falkland Islands were first seen by Davis in the year 

 1592, and Sir Richard Hawkins sailed along their north shore 

 in 1594. In 1598, Sebald de Wert, a Dutchman, visited them, 

 and called them the Sebald Islands, a name which they still 

 bear on some of the Dutch maps. Captain Strong sailed 

 through between the two principal islands in 1690, and called 

 the passage Falkland Sound. In 1763, the islands were taken 

 possession of by the French, who established a colony at Port 

 Louis ; they were, however, expelled by the Spaniards in 1767 

 or 1768. In 1761, Commodore Byron took possession, on the 

 part of England, on the ground of prior discovery, and his doing 

 so was nearly the cause of a war between England and Spain, 

 both countries having armed fleets to contest the barren sover- 

 eignty. In 1771, however, Spain yielded the islands to Great 

 Britain by convention. N^ot having been actually colonized by 

 us, the republic of Buenos Ayres claimed the islands in 1820, 

 and formed a settlement at the old Port Louis, which promised 

 to be fairly successful ; but, owing to some misunderstanding 

 with the Americans, it was destroyed by the latter in 1831. 

 After all these vicissitudes, the British flag was once more 

 hoisted at Port Louis in 1833, and since tliat time the Falkland 

 Islands have been a regular British colony, under a governor. 

 The group was called by the French the Malouines, from the 

 inhabitants of St. Maloes, whom they imagine to have been 

 their first discoverers ; and the Spanish name, the Malvinas, the 



