THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 303 



principally in roaming about in search of specimens, but 

 met with very little that was new to me, with the exception 

 of a curious little Umbelliferous plant which I found growing 

 in pools of water mixed up with the tufts of an aquatic mass. 

 • This was the Crantzia lineata, which also occurs in the Falk- 

 land Islands, iN'orth America, Australia, and New Zealand. 



On the morning of the 18th, while we were at breakfast 

 in the tent, one of the men communicated the somewhat 

 startling intelligence that there were " comets flying all round 

 the tents," and on our emerging to contemplate the pheno- 

 menon in question, we beheld seven or eight huge condors 

 sailing about in the air at some distance over-head, apparently 

 on the look-out for what they could pick up. After this they 

 were our daily companions, and I several times noticed with 

 interest that when they were flying at no great height, the 

 sound produced by the air passing between their huge primary 

 and secondary wing -feathers, which are widely separated 

 during flight, presented an almost exact resemblance to the 

 musical tones emitted by telegraph-wires in certain states of 

 the atmosphere. 



Our life on shore passed very pleasantly, though with- 

 out much variety, as we had bright sunny weather, w^hich 

 allowed us thoroughly to appreciate the pleasures, by no 

 means small, of camping out. On the 2 2d, the ship was 

 observed sounding in Lomas Bay, and we thought of striking 

 our tents and embarking for Dungeness, there to wait her 

 arrival, but the wind arose, and produced such a heavy surf 

 on the beach, that we judged it prudent to remain where we 

 were. The wind, however, fell in the evening, and next 

 morning we rose at an early hour, and after some trouble 

 in getting the boat through the surf, hoisted sail, and pro- 

 ceeded to Dungeness, where we found the " Nassau " lying at 

 anchor. We found that a large supply of letters and papers 



