1850 FALKLAND ISLANDS 77 



low, weather-board houses scattered along the hillsides 

 which rise round the harbour. One barnlike place is 

 Government House, another the pensioners' barracks, 

 rendered imposing by four field-pieces in front ; others 

 smaller are the residences of the colonel, surgeon, etc. 

 In one particularly black and unpromising-looking house 

 lives a Mrs. Sulivan, the wife of Captain Sulivan, 1 who 

 surveyed these islands, and has settled out here. I 

 asked myself if I could have had the heart to bring you 

 to such a desolate place, and myself said "No." How- 

 ever, I believe she is very happy with her children. 

 Sulivan is a fine energetic man, so I suppose if she loves 

 him, well and good, and fancies (is she not a silly 

 woman ?) that she has her reward. Mrs. Stanley has 

 gone to stay with them while the ship remains here, and 

 I think I shall go and look them up under pretence of 

 making a call. They say that the present winter is far 

 more savage than the generality of Falkland Island 

 winters, and it had need be, for I never felt anything so 

 bitterly cold in my life. The thermometer has been 

 down below 22, and shallow parts of the harbour even 

 have frozen. Nothing to be done ashore. My rifle lies 

 idle in its case ; no chance of a shot at a bull, and one 

 has to go away 20 miles to get hold even of the upland 

 geese and rabbits. The only thing to be done is to eat, 

 eat, eat, and the cold assists one wonderfully in that 

 operation. You consume a pound or so of beefsteaks at 

 breakfast and then walk the deck for an appetite at 

 dinner, when you take another pound or two of beef or a 

 goose, or some such trifle. By four o'clock it is dark 

 night, and as it is too cold to read, the only thing to be 



1 Captain Sulivan, who sailed with Darwin in the Beagle, aud 

 served with great distinction in command of the southern division 

 of the fleet in the battle of Obligado (Plate River), had surveyed 

 the Falkland Islands many years before his temporary settlement 

 there. During the Crimean War he was surveying officer to the 

 Baltic fleet, and afterwards naval adviser to the Board of Trade. 

 He was afterwards Admiral and K.C.B. 



