APPENDIX. 223 



coast for about seven miles, where it terminates in low rugged hills 

 a little in-shore of a brown rugged point, with a large white patch 

 on its extreme, which is an islet, but does not show as one from the 

 sea. To the northward of this point there is a fine bay, in which 

 we anchored, and, from a fisherman who came otF, learned that it is 

 Flamenco : it is a very good port, well sheltered from southerly 

 winds, and better from northerly, as the point projects far enough 

 to prevent a heavy sea getting up. The lauding is good in the S.E. 

 corner of the bay, either on the rocks, or on a beach in a small cove 

 in the middle of a patch of rocks, a little more to the northward, 

 where there are a few huts, in which two brothers, with their fami- 

 lies, were living ; their chief employment was catching and salting 

 fish, called cougre, and drying them to supply Copiapo. In one 

 day they had caught foiu: hundred. They appeared to live in a 

 miserable way, in huts made of seal and guanaco skins, much worse 

 than a Patagonian "toldo"; the only water they had to drink was 

 half salt, and some distance from the shore. They sometimes get 

 guanacoes, that they run down with dogs, of which they have a 

 great number. ^ 



The only vessel they had ever seen here, was a ship which 

 anchored one night, on her way to Las Animas for copper ore, six 

 years ago ; they described Las Animas as a very bad place, not fit for 

 any vessel, and in consequence no cargo had ever been shipped again, 

 but taken to Chaneral, which was better, but not so good as Fla- 

 menco. There are no mines so near Flamenco as to Chaneral. 



Flamenco may be known by the white patch on the brown 

 rugged point, to the southward of which, in-shore, there are low 

 jugged bills, rising to a high range. On the north side of the bay 

 the land is very low: the north point is a low rocky point, with a 

 detached hUl rising out of the low land a little in-shore. To the 

 northward there is another lull very much Uke it ; in the depth of 

 the bay the land is very low, and a deep valley runs back between 

 two ranges of rugged hills. The hiUs are all covered wdth yellow 

 sand near their bases, and to about half way up their sides, the tops 

 •axe stony, with a few stunted bushes. 



In the bay, to the northward of Flamenco, in which Las Animas 

 was said to be, we could see no place fit even for a boat to land; the 

 whole bay is rocky, with a few little patches of sand, and a heavy 

 surf was breaking on the shore. The north point of this bay is 



