112 Cruise of the *•*■ Alerts 



and Inoccntes Channels, always anchoring for the night, and 

 sometimes stopping for a day or two in order to examine some 

 new port. 



At Latitude Cove a black-necked swan {Cygniis ntgncollis) — 

 besides which only one other was ever seen by us in the western 

 channels — was shot. It proved to be a male bird, weighing only 

 seven pounds, and was in poor condition, having strayed far from 

 its own happy hunting grounds among the lagoons of central 

 Patagonia. 



We anchored at Sandy Point in the Strait of Magellan on the 

 2nd January, and remained there eleven days in order to provision 

 the ship, and to give the crew a change of air. 



Here I made the acquaintance of the master of a sealing 

 schooner, an intelligent man named John Stole — a Norwegian by 

 birth — from whom we obtained much interesting information 

 about the natives of Tierra del Fuego. At the time of our visit he 

 was laid up with a bad leg, on account of which he had had to 

 relinquish the command of his vessel the Rescue for this season's 

 cruise. His favourite sealing ground was among the rocky islets 

 about the S. W. parts of Tierra del Fuego ; but in the course of 

 his wanderings he had visited most of the islets and coasts extend- 

 ing from the mouth of the river Plate on the eastern coast to the 

 Gulf of Penas in the westward. During his last cruise, he had the 

 misfortune to be attacked by a party of natives in the Beagle 

 Channel, at a place not far from the missionary station of Ushuwia. 

 He gave us a most graphic description of the affair. His schooner 

 had been lying quietly at anchor in a rather desolate part of the 

 channel, having at the time only five men, including himself, on 

 board, when a canoe containing ten Fuegians — eight men and two 

 women — came alongside. Not suspecting any treachery, he went 

 below to have his tea, leaving one man on the forecastle to look 

 after the vessel. Presently hearing a scuffle on deck, he put up 

 his head through the small hatch of his cabin, when a native 

 standing above made a blow at him with a canoe paddle. The 



