May 1828. PORT XAVIER—YGNACIO BAY. 5 es 
“ The following day (27th) a grave was dug, and we dis- 
charged the last sad duties to our departed shipmate. A wooden 
cross was erected at the head of his grave, on which was an 
inscription to his memory: we also named the south point of 
the bay after him. About noon we left Port Xavier, and coasted 
the island, at the mean distance of a mile, examining it for 
anchorages, until, after a run of eight miles, we reached its 
south point. For the first four or five miles of that distance, 
the coast of the island consisted of a high steep cliff, having at 
its base a narrow beach, composed of various-sized masses of 
rock. In the interior there were heights, rising twelve or four- 
teen hundred feet, wooded nearly to the summits, with many 
streams of water descending from them ; but for the remainder 
of the distance the coast was low, and the wood stunted and 
seanty. All along the shore rolled a heavy surf, that would 
have rendered any attempt to land exceedingly hazardous ; 
there was no place fit for anchorage, except a small bight, near 
the extreme south point, into which we stood, and with some 
difficulty succeeded in anchoring at a cable’s length from the 
shore. The bay proved to be that called by the Spanish mis- 
slonary voyagers ‘ Ygnacio Bay.’ Over the south point,—a nar- 
row tongue of land, about five hundred yards across, with 
rocks and breakers stretching off shore, to the distance of two 
miles,—we took bearings and angles to various fixed points in 
the northern part of the gulf. The latitude, chronometric dif- 
ferences of longitude, and magnetic variation, were determined 
on shore at this southern point. 
< Our observations being completed, we left this anchorage 5 
and as it is little likely to be visited again, it will be enough to 
say that it is exceedingly dangerous. Nothing would have 
induced me to enter it, but the duty of examining the coast for 
anchorage, and the danger of remaining under sail close to an 
unexplored shore. 
“ Under an impression that the island of St. Xavier* was the 
* Xavier’s Island is certainly the Montrose Island of Byron’s Narra- 
tive. The Wager was lost, as will be seen, more to the southward, on the 
Guaianeco Islands. 
VOl. I. N 
