466 



JUAN FERNANDEZ. 



^^3^F^ 



Juan Fernandez, November 13th to 15th, 1875. — The voyage 

 to Juan Fernandez occupied six weeks, as we had the bad 

 fortune to be becahned for 1 2 days on the passage. It was 

 with the Hveliest interest that we approached the scene of 

 Alexander Selkirk's life of seclusion and hardship, and an 

 island with the existence of which, in the case of most of us, 

 the very fact that we were at sea on a long voyage was more 

 or less distantly connected. The study of Robinson Crusoe 

 certainly first gave me a desire to go to sea, and " Darwin's 

 Journal " settled the matter, Defoe was obliged to lay the 

 scene of his romance in the West Indies, in order to bring in 

 the Carib man, Friday. He thus gained the Parrot, but he 

 lost the Sea-Elephants and Fur-Seals of Juan Fernandez, one 

 of the latter of which would have made a capital pet for 

 Crusoe. 



The island is most beautiful in appearance. The dark 

 basaltic cliffs contrast with the bright yellow-green of the 

 abundant verdure ; and the island terminates in fantastic peaks, 

 which rise to a height of about 3,000 feet. Especially con- 

 spicuous is a precipitous mass which backs the view from the 

 anchorage at Cumberland Bay, and which is called from its 

 form " El Yunque " (the anvil). 



There are upwards of 24 species of Ferns growing in this 

 small island, and in any general view the Ferns form a large 

 proportion of the main mass of vegetation. Amongst them 

 are two Tree Ferns, one of which I only saw amongst the 

 rocks in the distance, but could not reach. The preponderant 

 Ferns, especially the Tree Ferns, give a pleasant yellow tinge 

 to the general foliage. Curiously enough the almost cosmo- 

 pohtan common Brake Fern {Pteris aquilina) does not occur 

 in the island. Four species of the Ferns out of the 24 present 

 are peculiar to the island, and one, Thyrsopteris elegmis, is of a 

 genus which occurs only here. The appearance of this Fern 

 is very remarkable, for the cup-shaped sori hang down from 

 the fronds in masses, looking just like bunches of millet seed. 

 This is the only known instance of a special genus of Ferns 

 being confined to an isolated small island. 



Everywhere for the first few hundred feet, trees are absent, 

 the wood having been all felled. In 1830 a large quantity of 



