THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 321 



was offered, on tasting it, spat it out with disgust. Coffee, on 

 the other hand, met with great appreciation. 



On the morning of the 16th, when the dredge was hauled 

 in, two fine specimens of an elegant long-spined Echinocidaris, 

 the E. Schythei of PhiKppi, afterwards obtained by us in 

 several other localities, were procured. We left the bay early 

 in the day, and proceeded northwards through Smyth's Chan- 

 nel. A more gloomy and desolate region than that through 

 which we passed can hardly be conceived ; intensely rugged 

 rocks and low hills, sustaining no vegetation higher in the 

 scale of life than lichens and mosses, on either side ; beyond, 

 savage gray mountains partially shrouded in mist ; and above, 

 a sky covered with a mantle of black clouds, which descended 

 at short intervals in torrents of rain ; — the w^hole combining 

 to produce a most depressing influence on our feelings, and 

 forcibly recalling to my remembrance Bunyan's famous descrip- 

 tion of the valley of the shadow of death. Between three and 

 four P.M. we reached the Otter Islands, a group of small islets 

 densely covered with a stunted vegetation composed princi- 

 pally of the evergreen beech, Winter's-bark, and " Cipres " 

 (Libocedrus tetragonus), and there anchored for the night. 

 Soon after I landed, and spent an hour on one of the islands, 

 obtaining for the first time specimens of a curious little fern, 

 with an undivided frond (Grammitis aiistralis), which I sub- 

 sequently met with in numerous localities in the Channels, 

 and western portion of the Strait. It generally grows on the 

 trunks of the trees in tufts, and its narrow fronds vary in size 

 from two to five or six inches in length, by a sixth to a fourth 

 of an inch in breadth. It is a very rare occurrence, I may" 

 here observe, throughout this region of almost perpetual rain, 

 to find a tree w^iich has not its bark almost entirely covered 

 with lichens, mosses, Jtmgermannice, and ferns {Hymenophyllece 



Y 



