CUAP, X.] GLACIERS ENTERING THE SEA. 225 
he was knocked over and over, but not hurt; and the boats, 
though thrice lifted on high and let fall again, received no dam- 
age. This was most fortunate for us, for we were a hundred 
miles distant from the ship, and we should have been left without 
provisions or fire-arms. I had previously observed that some 
large fragments of rock on the beach had been lately displaced ; 
but until seeing this wave, I did not understand the cause. One 
side of the creek was formed by a spur of mica-slate; the head 
by a cliff of ice about forty feet high; and the other side by a 
promontory fifty feet high, built up of huge rounded fragments of 
granite and mica-slate, out of which old trees were growing. 
This promontory was evidently a moraine, heaped up at a period 
when the glacier had greater dimensions. 
When we reached the western mouth of this northern branch 
of the Beagle Channel, we sailed amongst many unknown deso- 
late islands, and the weather was wretchedly bad. We met with 
no natives. The coast was almost everywhere so steep, that we 
had several times to pull many times hefore we could find space 
enough to pitch our two tents: one night we slept on large round 
boulders, with putrefying sea-weed between them; and when the 
tide rose, we had to get up and move our blanket-bags. The far- 
thest point westward which we reached was Stewart Island, a 
distance of about one hundred and fifty miles from our ship. We 
returned into the Beagle Channel by the southern arm, and 
thence proceeded, with no adventure, back to Ponsonby Sound. 
February 6th.—We arrived at Woollya. Matthews gave so 
bad an account of the conduct of the Fuegians, that Captain 
Fitz Roy determined to take him back to the Beagle; and ulti- 
mately he was left at New Zealand, where his brother was a mis- 
sionary. From the time of our leaving: a regular system of 
plunder commenced ; fresh parties of the natives kept arriving : 
York and Jemmy lost many things, and Matthews almost every 
thing which had not been concealed underground. Every article 
seemed to have been torn up and divided by the natives. Mat- 
thews described the watch he was obliged always to keep as most 
harassing; night and day he was surrounded by the natives, who 
tried to tire him out by making an incessant noise close to his 
head. One day an old man, whom Matthews asked to leave his 
wigwam, immediately returned with a large stone in his hand: 
