PORT DESIRE SPANISH SETTLEMENT. 211 



December 23d. — We anived at Poil Desire, sit- 

 uated in lat 47°, on the coast of Patagonia. The 

 creek runs for about twenty miles inland, with an 

 irregular width. The Beagle anchored a few miles 

 within the entrance, in front of the ruins of an old 

 Spanish settlement. 



The same evening I went on shore. The first 

 landing in any new country is very interesting, and 

 especially when, as in this case, the whole aspect 

 bears the stamp of a marked and individual chai'- 

 acter. At the height of between two and three 

 hundred feet above some masses of porphyry a 

 wide plain extends, which is truly characteristic of 

 Patagonia. The surface is quite level, and is com- 

 posed of well-rounded shingle mixed with a whi- 

 tish earth. Here and there scattered tufts of browTi 

 wiry grass are supported, and, still more rarely, 

 some low thorny bushes. The weather is dry and 

 pleasant, and the fine blue sky is but seldom ob- 

 scured. When standing in the middle of one of 

 these desert plains and looking towards the interior, 

 the view is generally bounded by the escaqsment 

 of another plain, rather higher, but equally level 

 and desolate ; and in every other direction the ho- 

 lizon is indistinct from the trembling mirage which 

 seems to rise from the heated surface. 



In such a- country the fate of the Spanish settle- 

 ment was soon decided ; the dryness of the climate 

 during the gi'eater part of the year, and the occa- 

 sional hostile attacks of the wandering Indians, 

 compelled the colonists to desert their half-finished 

 buildings. The style, however, in which they were 

 commenced, shows the strong and liberal hand of 

 Spain in the old time. The result of all the at- 

 tempts to colonize this side of America south of 

 41° have been miserable. Port Famine expresses 

 by its name the lingering and extreme sufferings 



