THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 157 



H.M.S. " Narcissus" a short time before, was lying for us, 

 and over the perusal of these we passed a pleasant evening. 



Next morning the weather was fine, and things had assumed 

 a more cheerful aspect, though the colouring of the landscape 

 was very cold — masses of gray quartz-rock cropping out at 

 intervals on the surface of a rugged country, entirely destitute 

 of trees, and covered with a peaty soil, clothed with yellowish 

 wiry grass. It is perhaps hardly necessary to inform the 

 reader that no native trees of any description exist on these 

 islands, and that attempts to introduce them have been 

 hitherto attended with entire failure. Even shrubs are very 

 scarce, and the only plant perhaps that merits the name, the 

 Veronica decussata, appears to be confined to the West 

 Island. The gTeater number of the terrestrial and marine 

 animals* are such as are also to be met with in the Strait of 

 Magellan and adjacent coasts of South America ; and the 

 same is the case as regards the plants, but few of which 

 appear to be peculiar to these islands, occurring either on 

 the plains of Eastern Patagonia, or in the western wooded 

 Fuegian region. It is, however, interesting to observe, that 

 though there is an entire absence of trees in this inhospitable 

 spot, several species of plants occur, which in the Strait of 

 Magellan are strictly confined to the wooded country, and 

 are not to be met with on the open plains of Patagonia. This 

 is, doubtless, in great measure, due to the amount of rainfall 

 in these regions, which is much greater than in eastern 

 Patagonia. 



On the afternoon of this day a party of three of us landed, 

 and had a pleasant walk over the hill at the back of the 



* The MoUuscan fauna has been regarded by some authors as consider- 

 ably dissimilar from that of the Strait, but this is not the case according to 

 my observations. 



