I833-] SPANISH SETTLEMENT. 119 



the coast of Patagonia. The creek runs for about twenty miles inland, 

 with an irregular width. The Beagle anchored a few miles within the 

 entrance, in front of the ruins of an old Spanish settlement. 



The same evening I went on shore. The first landing in any new 

 country is very interesting, and especially when, as in this case, the 

 whole aspect bears the stamp of a marked and individual character. 

 At the height of between two and three hundred feet above some 

 masses of porphyry a wide plain extends, which is truly characteristic 

 of Patagonia, The surface is quite level, and is composed of wen- 

 rounded shingle mixed with a whitish earth. Here and there scattered 

 tufts of brown wiry grass are supported, and, still more rarely, some 

 low thorny bushes. The weather is dry and pleasant, and the fine 

 blue sky is but seldom obscured. When standing in the middle of one 

 of these desert plains and looking towards the interior, the view is 

 generally bounded by the escarpment of another plain, rather higher, 

 but equally level and desolate ; and in every other direction the hori- 

 zon is indistinct from the trembling mirage which seems to rise from 

 the heated surface. 



In such a country the fate of the Spanish settlement was soou 

 decided ; the dryness of the climate during the greater part of the 

 year, and the occasional hostile attacks of the wandering Indians, 

 compelled the colonists to desert their half-finished buildings. The 

 style, however, in which they were commenced shows the strong and 

 liberal hand of Spain in the old time. The result of all the attempts to 

 colonize this side of America south of 41, has been miserable. Port 

 Famine expresses by its name the lingering and extreme sufferings of 

 several hundred wretched people, of whom one alone survived to relate 

 their misfortunes. At St. Joseph's Bay, on the coast of Patagonia, a 

 small settlement was made ; but during one Sunday the Indians made 

 an attack and massacred the whole party, excepting two men, who 

 remained captives during many years. At the Rio Negro I conversed 

 with one of these men, now in extreme old age. 



The zoology of Patagonia is as limited as its Flora.* On the arid 

 plains a few black beetles (Heteromera) might be seen slowly crawling 

 about, and occasionally a lizard darted from side to side. Of birds we 

 have three carrion hawks, and in the valleys a few finches and insect- 

 feeders. An ibis (Theristicus melanops a species said to be found in 

 central Africa) is not uncommon on the most desert parts : in their 

 stomachs I found grasshoppers, cicadse, small lizards, and even 

 scorpions.f At one time of the year these birds go in flocks, at anothei 



* I found here a species of cactus, described by Professor Henslow, under 

 the name of Opuntia Daruiinii (Magazine of Zoology and Botany, vol. L, 

 p. 466), which was remarkable by the irritability of the stamens, when I 

 inserted either a piece of stick or the end of my ringer in the flower. The 

 segments of the perianth also closed on the pistil, but more slowly than the 

 stamens. Plants of this family, generally considered as tropical, occur in 

 North America ("Lewis and Clarke's Travels," p. 221), in the same high 

 latitude as here, namely, in both cases, in 47 



" t These insects were not uncommon beneatfr stones. I found one cannibal 

 scorpion quietly devouring another, 



