SCENKRY OF THE MuUNTAIiV:?. 269 



done with such alacrity, that I dare say he thought 

 himself the handsomest man in TieiTa del Fuego. 

 After our first feeling of grave astonishment was 

 over, nothing could be' more ludicrous than the odd 

 mixture of surprise and imitation which these sav- 

 ages every moment exhibited. 



The next day I attempted to penetrate some 

 way into the country. Tierra del Fuego may be 

 described as a mountainous land, partly submerged 

 in the sea, so that deep inlets and bays occupy the 

 place where valleys should exist. The mountain 

 sides, except on the exposed western coast, are 

 covered from the water's edge upwards by one 

 great forest. The trees reach to an elevation of 

 between 1000 and 1500 feet, and are succeeded by 

 a band of peat, with minute alpine plants ; and this, 

 again, is succeeded by the line of perpetual snow, 

 which, according to Captain King, in the Strait of 

 Magellan descends to between 3000 and 4000 feet. 

 To find an acre of level land in any pait of the 

 country is most rare. I recollect only one little flat 

 piece near Port Famine, and another of rather 

 larger extent near Goeree Road. In both places, 

 and everywhere else, the surface is covered by a 

 thick bed of swampy peat. Even within the forest, 

 the ground is concealed by a mass of slowly putre- 

 fying vegetable matter, which, from being soaked 

 with water, yields to the foot. 



Finding it nearly hopeless to push my way 

 throughthe wood, I followed the course of a mount- 

 ain torrent. At first, from the waterfalls and num- 

 ber of dead trees, I could hardly crawl along ; but 

 the bed of the stream soon became a little more 

 open, from the floods having swept the sides. I 

 continued slowly to advance for an hour along the 

 broken and rocky banks, and was amply repaid by 

 Z 2 



