118 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



throughout our service in the Strait that every surveying-boat 

 leaving the ship should be provided with a supply of provi- 

 sions sufficient to last for some days longer than was likely to 

 be required. Early in the afternoon, therefore, we set out on 

 a long ramble to the eastward, descending to the beach, and 

 walking along at high-water mark. Here a strange wild 

 scene presented itself, for on one side high steep cliffs, about 

 which a couple of eagles were soaring, towered above us, and 

 on the other was a mass of foaming billows ; while at our feet 

 lay scattered about numerous vestiges of former devastation, 

 the shore being strewn for miles with fragments of masts and 

 spars, and pieces of canvas. On our way we spent a consider- 

 able amount of time in endeavouring to ascertain the name 

 of the ill-fated vessel ; and at length arriving at a spot some- 

 what resembling our landing-place, where the land sloped 

 down seawards, we discovered, half drifted up with sand, the 

 remains of a wooden shelter built of planks and oars, evi- 

 dently the work of the survivors of the disaster. "We retraced 

 our steps towards our camp later in the day, walking along 

 the land at the back of the cliffs, which we found covered 

 with long coarse grass, a low shrubbery of Lepidophyllum^ 

 and extensive thickets of barberries, evidently the occa- 

 sional resort of pumas, as I found portions of skeletons of 

 these animals lying about. We skirted along the edge of 

 one or two marshes, which yielded me a few additions to my 

 botanical collection, including several Graminaceae ; a Primu- 

 laceous plant, the Samolus spathulatus^ with smooth spathu- 

 late, radical leaves, and pretty purple flowers ; and the wild 

 celery, Apium graveolens, which last I subsequently found 

 to be widely distributed throughout the Strait and in the 

 Western Channels. As has been remarked by Dr. Hooker in 

 his Flora Antarctica, it is a very curious fact that this plant^ 



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