74 CAPTAIN STOKES'S BOAT-cRUIZE. Feb. 1827. 
Captain Stokes says, ‘‘ Our discomfort in an open boat was 
very great, since we were all constantly wet to the skin. In 
trying to double the various headlands, we were repeatedly 
obliged (after hours of ineffectual struggle against sea and 
wind) to desist from useless labour, and take refuge in the 
nearest cove which lay to leeward.” 
From the Harbour of Mercy, Captain Stokes attempted to 
cross the Strait, on his return to the Beagle; but the sea ran 
too high, and obliged him to defer his daring purpose until 
the weather was more favourable. 
During his absence, Lieutenant Skyring surveyed Tamar 
Bay and its vicinity. 
Again the Beagle weighed, and tried hard to make some 
progress to the westward, but was obliged a third time to 
return to Tamar Bay. After another delay she just reached 
Sholl Bay, under Cape Phillip, and remained there one day, to 
make a plan of the anchorage, and take observations to fix its 
position. 
The Beagle reached the Harbour of Mercy (Separation 
Harbour of Wallis and Carteret),* after a thirty days’ passage 
from Port Famine, on the 15th, having visited several ancho- 
rages on the south shore in her way. But tedious and haras- 
sing as her progress had been, the accounts of Byron, Wallis, 
Carteret, and Bougainville show that they found more difficulty, 
and took more time, in their passages from Port Famine to the 
western entrance of the Strait. Byron, in 1764, was forty-two 
days; Wallis, in 1766, eighty-two; Carteret, in the same 
year, eighty-four; and Bougainville, in 1768, forty days, in 
going that short distance. 
Five days were passed at this place, during which they com- 
municated with a few natives, of whom Captain Stokes remarks; 
** As might be expected from the unkindly climate in which 
they dwell, the personal appearance of these Indians does not 
* It was here that Commodore Wallis and Captain Carteret separated, 
the Dolphin going round the world; the Swallow returning to England. 
Sarmiento’s name of Puerto de la Misericordia, or ‘ Harbour of Mercy,’ 
being of prior date, ought doubtless to be retained. 
