APPENDIX. 229 



the offing : and if bound to the south, steer also du-ect to the place, 

 if fortunate enough to have a wind which admits of your doing so ; 

 but if not, stand out to sea, by the wind, keeping every sail clean full : 

 tiie object being to get through the adverse southerly winds as soon 

 as possible, and reach a latitude from which the ship will be sure of 

 reaching her port, on a direct course. Every experienced seaman 

 knows that no method is more adverse to making quick passages 

 than that of ' hugging the wind,' as it is called. When Sir Thomas 

 Hardy was on this coast, he used to cross the southerly winds with 

 a topmast studding-sail set, as many men cross the trades, his object 

 being to get into other winds. The current on the coast of Chile is 

 northerly, about half a mile an hour ; varying a little with the wind. 



The idea some persons have of Copiapo being a difficult place to 

 make is rather unfounded ; the following is the manner in which we 

 made it in the Beagle, when strangers to that part of the coast. 



July 3. A dull gloomy day, wind moderate from the southward ; 

 at 10 A.M. we were thirty miles south of Copiapo, by the dead rec- 

 koning from noon yesterday ; but being aware of the northerly set, 

 which near the shore is half a mile an hour, we steered an E.N.E. 

 course in for the land ; at noon it was in sight, forming two long 

 rounded-topped hills : the northern one was the highest, it ended in 

 a bluff, with a low point sloping off it ; this we rightly supposed 

 was the Morro of Copiapo, it bore N.E. ; and the other which was 

 a-head the high land of Tortoral ; this had a gradual slope to sea- 

 ward. A roimd and rather peaked black rock, about ten feet high, a 

 little open, of a low level (eighty-five feet high) of a light brown 

 colour, with some remarkable white patches on it, was seen at three ; 

 and a little before it, about a point south of the Morro, was a low, 

 black, rocky island. The latter was Isla Grande, and the former the 

 Caxa Grande rock, with the west point of the anchorage cove, on 

 which there is a flag- staff : as we neared the land the wind gradually 

 left us ; and, as the day closed, we were four miles from the Caxa 

 Grande. The clouds that covered the high land in-shore of Copiapo, 

 lifted off a little in the evening, showing us two remarkable hills, one 

 with a notched top, and the other like a sugarloaf, with rather a flat 

 top ; this was in a direction a little south of the Caxa Grande, and 



