420 NEW YEAR SOUND. March 1830. 
tending towards the N.W., with a multitude of islands scat- 
tered about it. From its east side the land trends away towards 
a point which is curiously peaked, like a horn, and which I 
supposed to be the western point of Nassau Bay.* 
22d. We had hardly left our cove, when steady rain set in ; 
however, we went across towards New Year Sound, sometimes 
favoured by the wind, but could do little. As faras I saw the 
day before, the snowy chain of mountains continued to the 
eastward, therefore I had little hope of finding a body of water 
in the interior of Tierra del Fuego, about the head of Nassau 
Bay. About noon we were near Weddell’s ‘ Indian Cove,’ but 
the weather being thick I did not recognise it, so we stood up 
the sound with a fresh breeze from the W.S.W. I soon found 
that it led only to the north and west, and probably communi- 
cated with some of the passages which Mr. Murray saw lead- 
ing to the eastward from the neighbourhood of Christmas 
Sound. Towards the north and east I had already noticed a 
long range of mountains. Concluding therefore from what I 
then observed, and from views obtained from the heights, that 
no passage leads from this sound direct to Christmas Sound, 
and that to return to the Beagle I must go part of the way by 
the sea-coast, or else go round, by a series of intricate passages, 
to the places which Mr. Murray had seen in the cutter ; I pre- 
ferred the coast, as a second view of it would be of use, while a 
traverse among the islands could not be very beneficial. 
* Putting about, we returned down the sound, the breeze still 
allowing us to sail fast. We closed the western shore to look for 
Indian Cove, and, as the weather had cleared up, found it 
without difficulty. It is not so good a place as I expected ; for 
except at the inner corner close to a run of water, I found only 
rocky soundings. The few casts of good ground were so close 
to the shoré that the place can only be considered fit for a cutter, 
or small craft, which could lie quite close to the land. This 
cove is, in my opinion, too far inland to be of general use ; and 
an anchorage under. Morton Island would be far preferable 
* False Cape Horn, or Cape False. 
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