CHAPTER VI. 
Trees—Leave Port Famine—Patagonians—Gregory Bay—Bysante— 
Maria—Falkner’s account of the Natives—Indians seen on the bor- 
ders of the Otway Water, in 1829 — Maria visits the Adventure— 
Religious Ceremony— Patagonian Encampment—T omb of a Child— 
Women’s employment — Children — Gratitude of a Native—Size of 
Patagonians—Former accounts of their gigantic height—Character— 
Articles for barter—Fuegians living with Patagonians—Ships sail— 
Arrive at Monte Video and Rio de Janeiro. 
Wuite detained by northerly winds, the carpenter and a 
party of people were employed in the woods selecting and cut- 
ting down trees to be ready for our next visit. After felling 
thirteen trees, from twenty-four to thirty-six inches in dia- 
meter, eight were found to be rotten at the heart; but by 
afterwards taking the precaution of boring the trees with an 
augur, while standing, much trouble was saved, and fifteen 
sound sticks of considerable diameter were cut down. We 
found one tree, an evergreen beech, too large for any of our 
saws: it measured twenty-one feet in girth at the base, and 
from the height of six feet to twenty it was seventeen feet in 
circumference ; above this height, three large arms (each from 
thirty to forty inches in diameter), branched off from the trunk. 
It is, perhaps, the very tree described by Byron in his account 
of this place. We only once saw it equalled in size, and that 
was by a prostrate trunk, very much decayed. 
In this interval of fine weather and northerly wind, we had 
the thermometer as high as 58°, and the barometer ranging 
between 29.80 and 30.00; but for two days before the wind 
shifted, the alteration was predicted by a gradual descent of the 
mercurial column, and a considerable increase of cold. On the 
7th May, as there was some appearance of a change, we got 
under weigh; but were hardly outside the port, when a northerly 
wind again set in, and prevented our going farther than Fresh- 
