182 RETURN TO PORT FAMINE. Aug. 1828. 
Leaving Port Otway, she steered along the coast with, strange 
to say, easterly winds and fine weather, which enabled Lieut. 
Skyring to add much to the survey of the coast of Madre de 
Dios. Captain Stokes now began to show symptoms of a malady, 
that had evidently been brought on by the dreadful state of » 
anxiety he had gone through during the survey of the Gulf 
of Penas. He shut himself up in his cabin, becoming quite 
listless, and inattentive to what was going on ; and after entering 
the Strait of Magalhaens, on his return to Port Famine, he 
delayed at several places without any apparent reason ; conduct 
quite opposite to what his would naturally have been, had he 
then been of sound mind. At last, want of provisions obliged 
him to hasten to Port Famine ; and the day on which he arrived 
every article of food was expended. 
The fatal event, which had cast an additional gloom over 
every one, decided our quitting the Strait. Both ships were 
immediately prepared, and we sailed on the 16th August ; 
but previously, I appointed Lieutenant Skyring to act as com- 
mander of the Beagle; Mr. Flinn to be master of the Adven- 
ture; and Mr. Millar, second master of the Adventure, to act 
as master of the Beagle. 'The day we sailed, Mr. Flinn was 
taken ill; and, Lieutenant Wickham being on the sick list, I 
was the only commissioned officer able to keep the deck. As the 
wind was from the N.W., we were obliged to beat to wind- 
ward all night, and the next morning were off Sandy Point ; 
but it blew so very strong from the westward, and the wea- 
ther was so thick from snow-squalls, which passed in rapid suc- 
cession, that we bore up, and anchored in Freshwater Bay, 
where the ships were detained by northerly winds until the 
21st, when we proceeded; the wind, however, again opposing, 
we anchored about half a mile from the shore, in a bight, 
seven miles southward of Sandy Point. The following day we 
were underweigh early, and reached Gregory Bay. When off 
Elizabeth Island, I despatched the Beagle to Pecket’s Harbour 
to recall the Adelaide, in which Lieutenant Graves had been 
sent to procure guanaco meat. The Beagle worked through, 
between Elizabeth Island and Cape Negro, and was seen by 
