t70 PORT ST. JULIAN. [cuap. VIII. 
roaming Indians bring the less perishable part of their dead to 
their ancient burial-ground on the coast. 
January 9th, 1834.—Before it was dark the Beagle anchored 
in the fine spacious harbour of Port St. Julian, situated about 
one hundred and ten miles to the south of Port Desire. We 
remained here eight days. The country is nearly similar to that 
of Port Desire, but perhaps rather more sterile. One day a 
party accompanied Captain Fitz Roy on a long walk round the 
head of the harbour. We were eleven hours without tasting 
any water, and some of the party were quite exhausted. From 
the summit of a hill (since well named Thirsty Hill) a fine lake 
was spied, and two of the party proceeded with concerted signals to 
show whether it was fresh water. What was our disappointment 
to find a snow-white expanse of sait, crystallized in great cubes ! 
We attributed our extreme thirst to the dryness of the atmos- 
phere ; but whatever the cause might be, we were exceedingly 
glad late in the evening to get back to the boats. Although 
we could nowhere find, during our whole visit, a single drop of 
fresh water, yet some must exist ; for by an odd chance I found 
on the surface of the salt water, near the head of the bay, a Co- 
lymbetes not quite dead, which must have lived in some not far 
distant pool. Three other insects (a Cincindela, like hybrida, 
a Cymindis, and a Harpalus, which all live on muddy flats occa- 
sionally overflowed by the sea), and one other found dead on the 
plain, complete the list of the beetles. A good-sized fly (‘Ta- 
banus) was extremely numerous, and tormented us by its painful 
bite. The common horsefly, which is so troublesome in the 
shady lanes of England, belongs to this same genus. We here 
have the puzzle that so frequently occurs in the case of mus- 
quitoes—on the blood of what animals do these insects commonly 
feed? The guanaco is nearly the only warm-blooded quadruped, 
and it is found in quite inconsiderable numbers compared with 
the multitude of flies. 
The geology of Patagonia is interesting. * Differently from 
Europe, where the tertiary formations appear to have accu- 
mulated in bays, here along hundreds of miles of coast we have 
one great deposit, including many tertiary shells, all apparently 
extinct The most common shell is a massive gigantic oyster, 
