122 SUPPOSED SAN SEBASTIAN CHANNEL. 1828. 
was sent for them, and we found they were deserters from the 
Uxbridge, who had come to volunteer for our ships. 
The following day the Adeona and Uxbridge arrived, on 
their way to Port San Antonio, to boil their oil ; but I recom- 
mended Bougainville, or (as the sealers call it) Jack’s Harbour, 
as more convenient for their purpose, and more secure from 
storms, as well as from troublesome visits of the natives. 
Upon my offering to restore the three deserters to the Ux- 
bridge, Mr. Low requested me to keep them, and another, also, 
who was anxious to join the Adventure, to which I consented, 
as the Adelaide wanted men. 
A few days after Mr. Low’s departure, he returned in a 
whale-boat to ask assistance in repairing the Uxbridge’s rudder. 
By our help it was soon made serviceable, and she was enabled 
to prosecute her voyage, which could not otherwise have been 
continued. 
The Adelaide being ready for sea: her first service was to be 
an examination of the St. Sebastian Channel, which, from its 
delineation on the old charts, would seem to penetrate through 
the large eastern island of Tierra del Fuego. In the voyage of 
the Nodales (in the year 1618), an opening on the eastern coast, 
supposed to be the mouth of a channel, communicating with 
the Strait of Magalhaens, was discovered. After describing the 
coast to the south of Cape Espiritu Santo, the journal of that 
voyage states: ‘* We found, in the channel of St. Sebastian, 
twenty fathoms clear ground. The north shore is a beach of 
white sand, five leagues in extent, stretching out from the high 
land that terminates at Cape Espiritu Santo, and giving the 
coast here the appearance of a deep bay; but, on a nearer 
approach, a projecting tract of low shore is observed. The 
south extremity of this low beach is a sandy point, round which 
the channel trends; the mouth is a league and a half wide. 
The south shore is higher than the land to the northward, and 
in the middle of the bay the depth is from fifteen to twenty 
fathoms clear ground, and a good bottom ; but from mid- 
channel to the south shore the bottom is stony, and the water, 
of little depth, there being only six and seven fathoms. From 
