l6i TIERRA DEL PUEGO. fcHAP.it, 



ship; and to proceed with the two other boats, one under his own 

 command (in which he most kindly allowed me to accompany him), 

 and one under Mr. Hammond, to survey the western parts of the 

 Beagle Channel, and afterwards to return and visit the settlement. 

 The day to our astonishment was overpoweringly hot, so that out 

 skins were scorched: with this beautiful weather, the view in the 

 middle of the Beagle Channel was very remarkable. Looking towards 

 either hand, no object intercepted the vanishing points of this long 

 canal between the mountains. The circumstance of its being an arm 

 of the sea was rendered very evident by several huge whales * spoutinp 

 in different directions. On one occasion I saw two of these monsters 

 probably male and female, slowly swimming one after the other, 

 within less than a stone's throw of the shore, over which the beech- tree 

 extended its branches. 



We sailed on till it was dark, and then pitched our tents in a quiet 

 creek. The greatest luxury was to find for our beds a beach of pebbles, 

 for they were dry and yielded to the body. Peaty soil is damp ; rock 

 is uneven and hard ; sand gets into one's meat when cooked and eaten 

 boat-fashion ; but when lying in our blanket-bags, on a good bed of 

 smooth pebbles, we passed most comfortable nights. 



It was my watch till one o'clock. There is something very solemn 

 in these scenes. At no time does the consciousness in what a remote 

 corner of the world you are then standing, come so strongly before the 

 mind. Everything tends to this effect ; the stillness of the night is 

 interrupted only by the heavy breathing of the seamen beneath the 

 tents, and sometimes by the cry of a night-bird. The occasional 

 barking of a dog, heard in the distance, reminds one that it is the land 

 of the savage. 



January "i^th. Early in the morning we arrived at the point where 

 the Beagle Channel divides into two arms ; and we entered the 

 northern one. The scenery here becomes even grander than before. 

 The lofty mountains on the north side compose the granitic axis, or 

 backbone of the country, and boldly rise to a height of between thiee 

 and four thousand feet, with one peak above six thousand feet. They 

 are covered by a wide mantle of perpetual snow, and numerous 

 cascades pour their waters, through the woods, into the narrow channel 

 below. In many parts, magnificent glaciers extend from the mountain 

 side to the water's edge. It is scarcely possible to imagine anything 

 more beautiful than the beryl-like blue of these glaciers, and especially 

 as contrasted with the dead r vvhite of the upper expanse of snow. The 

 fragments which had fallen from the glacier into the water, were floating 

 away, and the channel with its icebergs presented, for the space of a 

 mile, a miniature likeness of the Polar Sea. The boats being hauled 

 on shore at our dinner-hour, we were admiring from the distance oi 

 half a mile a perpendicular cliff of ice, and were wishing that some 



* One day, off the east coast of Tierra del Fuego, we saw a grand sight 

 in several spermaceti whales jumping upright quite out of the water, with 

 the exception of their tail-fins. As they fell down sideways, t.hey splashed 

 Che water high upj and the sound reverberated like a distant broadside. 



