1 5* TIERRA DEL FUEGO. [CHAP. x. 



concealed by a mass of slowly putrefying vegetable matter, which, from 

 being soaked with water, yields to the foot. 



Finding it nearly hopeless to push my way through the wood, I 

 followed the course of a mountain torrent. At first, from the waterfalls 

 and number of dead trees, I could hardly crawl along ; but the bed of 

 the stream soon became a little more open, from the floods having 

 swept the sides. I continued slowly to advance for an hour along the 

 broken and rocky banks, and was amply repaid by the grandeur of the 

 scene. The gloomy depth of the ravine well accorded with the 

 universal signs of violence. On every side were lying irregular masses 

 of rock and torn-up trees ; other trees, though still erect, were decayed 

 to the heart and ready to fall. The entangled mass of the thriving and 

 the fallen reminded me of the forests within the tropics yet there was 

 a difference : for in these still solitudes, Death, instead of Life, seemed 

 the predominant spirit. I followed the watercourse till I came to a 

 spot, where a great slip had cleared a straight space down the mountain 

 side. By this road I ascended to a considerable elevation, and obtained 

 a good view of the surrounding woods. The trees all belong to one 

 kind, the Fagus betuloides; for the number of the other species of 

 Fagus and of the Winter's Bark, is quite inconsiderable. This beech 

 keeps its leaves throughout the year ; but its foliage is of a peculiar 

 brownish-green colour, with a tinge of yellow. As the whole landscape 

 is thus coloured, it has a sombre, dull appearance ; nor is it often 

 enlivened by the rays of the sun. 



December loth. One side of the harbour is formed by a hill about 

 1,500 feet high, which Captain Fitz Roy has called after Sir J. Banks, 

 in commemoration of his disastrous excursion, which proved fatal to 

 two men of his party, and nearly so to Dr. Solander. The snow-storm, 

 which was the cause of their misfortune, happened in the middle of 



January, corresponding to our July, and in the latitude of Durham I 

 was anxious to reach the summit of this mountain to collect alpine 

 plants ; for flowers of any kind in the lower parts are few in number. 

 We followed the same watercourse as on the previous day, till it 

 dwindled away, and we were then compelled to crawl blindly among 

 the trees. These, from the effects of the elevation and of the impetuous 

 winds, were low, thick, and crooked. At length we reached that which 

 from a distance appeared like a carpet of fine green turf, but which, to 

 our vexation, turned out to be a compact mass of little beech-trees 

 about four or five feet high. They were as thick together as box in the 

 border of a garden, and we were obliged to struggle over the flat but 

 treacherous surface. After a little more trouble we gained the peat, 

 and then the bare slate rock. 



A ridge connected this hill with another, distant some miles, and 

 more lofty, so that patches of snow were lying on it. As the day was 

 not far advanced, I determined to walk there and collect plants along 

 the road. It would have been very hard work had it not been for 

 a well-beaten and straight path made by the guanacos; for thesr. 

 animals, like sheep, always follow the same line. When we reached 

 the hill we found it the highest in the immediate neighbourhood, and 



