3s 
1829. DESECHO—OSORIO—SAN TADZEO. 32% 
took to a branch of it that ran first to the eastward, and then 
to the northward.” There they landed, took the canoes to pieces, 
and carried them over the isthmus; then putting them toge- 
ther again, re-embarked, and proceeded through the Chonos 
Archipelago to Childe. 
When at Childe, I saw an old man, Pedro Osorio, who had 
been in two of the last missionary voyages (in 1769 and 1778), 
to the Guaineco Islands; where the W ager was wrecked. He 
related to me the particulars of these voyages, and gave me an 
account of the ¢ Desecho,’ over which the missionaries trans- 
ported their piraguas. He also remembered Byron and his 
companions; and described them by the following names :— 
Don David (Captain David Cheap); Don Juan (John Byron) ; 
Hamerton (Hamilton); and Plasta. The name Plasta is not 
once mentioned in Byron’s Narrative; but on referring to 
Bulkeley’s and Cumming’s account, one Plastow is described as 
the captain’s servant ; and perhaps he was one of the number 
who remained with Captain Cheap.(z) Pedro Osorio must have 
been upwards of ninety years of age, in 1829.(a) A detailed 
account of these voyages is given in A giieros’s Historical Descrip- 
tion of the province of Childe, p. 205. 
Captain Stokes’s ‘ Dead-tree Island,’ in the entrance of San 
Estevan Gulf, is near the ¢ Cirujano Island’ (Surgeon Island) of 
those voyages. Pedro Osorio told me that it was so called, 
because the surgeon of the Wager died there. From Byron’s 
Narrative it would appear, that the surgeon died, and was 
buried, just before they embarked to cross the sound.—See 
Byron, p. 147. 
As the examination of the River San Tadeo, and the dis- 
covery of the ‘ Desecho,’ formed a part of Lieutenant Skyring’s 
instructions, he proceeded up it, in a whale-boat, accompanied 
by Mr. Kirke. The entrance of the river is blocked up by a 
bar of sand and stones, which, at low spring-tide, must be 
nearly dry ; and a heavy swell breaks upon its whole length, 
joining the surf of the beach, on each side; so that there is 
(z) Could ¢ Plasta’ refer to Alexander Campbell 2—R. F. 
(a) Pedro Osorio died at San Carlos in 1832.—R. F. 
