110 FIRST NARROW—RACE. Jan. 1828. 
the point of bursting over us with a deluge of rain, it suddenly 
vanished, and was succeeded by a beautifully clear and fine 
night. This favourable appearance gave us hopes of being 
able to make good our entrance on the following day ; but a 
fresh gale set in, and kept us at our anchorage. 
Early on the 14th we made another fruitless attempt to pass 
the First Narrow. As the Adelaide sailed under our stern, 
Lieutenant Graves informed me that he had lost an anchor, 
and had only one left, to which he had bent his chain-cable ; 
and that she had shipped so much water in attempting to beat 
through, that he was on the point of asking permission to bear 
up when we ourselves gave up the attempt. It blew too hard 
to give any assistance to the Adelaide, but next morning, 
when the weather was more moderate, I seized an opportunity 
of sending our two kedge anchors; and in the afternoon we 
supplied her with some water and other necessaries, so that she 
was comparatively well off, and my anxiety on her account 
much relieved. 
Fires on the Fuegian side had been kept up since our arri- 
val, but we could not distinguish any inhabitants; on the 
Patagonian shores we saw a great number of guanacoes feeding 
quietly, a proof of there being no Indians near them. 
On the 16th, the weather appearing favourable, our anchor 
was weighed, and, with the Adelaide, we soon entered the 
sluice of the Narrow, proceeding rapidly, though the wind blew 
hard against us. The tide carried us to an anchorage, about 
four miles beyond the western entrance, and it was slack water 
when the anchor was dropped ; but, no sooner had the stream 
turned, than we found ourselves in the midst of a ‘ race, 
and during the whole tide, the water broke furiously over the 
ship. At slack water we got underweigh, but the Adelaide 
not being able (from the strength of the tide), to purchase her 
anchor, was obliged to slip the cable: it was fortunate that 
we had supplied her with our kedges, or she would then have 
been without an anchor. The night was tempestuous, and 
although we reached a much quieter birth, the Adelaide drifted 
considerably ; had she remained at the morning’s anchorage, 
