20 CHONOS ARCHIPELAGO. 



er any human being has previously visited an un- 

 frequented spot. A bit of wood, with a nail in it, 

 is picked up and studied as if it were covered with 

 hieroglyphics. Possessed with this feeling, I was 

 much interested by finding, on a wild part of the 

 coast, a bed, made of grass, beneath a ledge of rock. 

 Close by it there had been a fire, and the man 

 had used an axe. The fire, bed, and situation show- 

 ed the dexterity of an Indian, but he could scarcely 

 have been an Indian, for the race is in this part ex- 

 tinct, owing to the Catholic desire of making at one 

 blow Christians and slaves. I had at the time some 

 misgivings that the solitary man who had made his 

 bed on this wild spot must have been some poor 

 shipwrecked sailor, who, in trying to travel up the 

 coast, had here laid himself down for his dreary 

 night. 



December- 28t7i,. — The weather continued very 

 bad, but it at last peiTnitted us to proceed with the 

 survey. The time hung heavy on our hands, as it 

 always did when we were delayed from day to day 

 by successive gales of wind. In the evening an- 

 other harbour was discovered, where we anchored. 

 Directly afterwards a man was seen waving his 

 shirt, and a boat was sent which brought back two 

 seamen. A party of six had run away from an 

 American whaling vessel, and had landed a little to 

 the southward in a boat, which was shortly after- 

 wards knocked to pieces by the surf They had 

 now been wandering up and down the coast for 

 fifteen months, without knowing which way to go, 

 or where they were. What a singular piece of 

 good foi'tune it was that this harbour was now dis- 

 covered ! Had it not been for this one chance, 

 they might have wandered till they had grown old 

 men, and at last have perished on this wild coast. 

 Their sufferings had been very great, and one of 



