I833-] GOOD SUCCESS BAY. 247 



of rain : I am not, therefore, in very good trim for writing ; 

 but, defying the blue devils, I will send you a few lines, if it is 

 merely to thank you very sincerely for writing to me. I 

 received your letter, dated December ist, a short time since. 

 We are now passing part of the winter in the Rio Plata, after 

 having had a hard summer's work to the south. Tierra del 

 Fuego is indeed a miserable place ; the ceaseless fury of the 

 gales is quite tremendous. One evening we saw old Cape 

 Horn, and three weeks afterwards we were only thirty miles 

 to windward of it. It is a grand spectacle to see all nature 

 thus raging ; but Heaven knows every one in the Beagle has 

 seen enough in this one summer to last them their natural 

 lives. 



The first place we landed at was Good Success Bay. It 

 was here Banks and Solander met such disasters on ascending 

 one of the mountains. The weather was tolerably fine, and I 

 enjoyed some walks in a wild country, like that behind Bar- 

 mouth. The valleys are impenetrable from the entangled 

 woods, but the higher parts, near the limits of perpetual snow, 

 are bare. From some of these hills the scenery, from its 

 savage, solitary character, was most sublime. The only in- 

 habitant of these heights is the guanaco, and with its shrill 

 neighing it often breaks the stillness. The consciousness 

 that no European foot had ever trod much of this ground 

 added to the delight of these rambles. How often and how 

 vividly have many of the hours spent at Barmouth come 

 before my mind ! I look back to that time with no common 

 pleasure ; at this moment I can see you seated on the hill 

 behind the inn, almost as plainly as if you were really there. 

 It is necessary to be separated from all which one has been 

 accustomed to, to know how properly to treasure up such recol- 

 lections, and at this distance, I may add, how properly to 

 esteem such as yourself, my dear old Herbert. I wonder when 

 I shall ever see you again. I hope it may be, as you say, 

 surrounded with heaps of parchment ; but then there must be, 



