1835.} THE SETTLEMENT. 375 
large cacti, seemed to my fancy like some antediluvian animals. 
The few dull-coloured birds cared no more for me, than they did 
for the great tortoises. 
237d.—The Beagle proceeded to Charles Island. This archi- 
pelago has long been frequented, first by the Bucaniers, and 
' latterly by whalers, but it is only within the Jast six years, that 
a small colony has been established here. The inhabitants are 
between two and three hundred in number: they are nearly all 
people of colour, who have been banished for political crimes 
from the Republic of the Equator, of which Quito is the capital. 
The settlement is placed about four and a half miles inland, and 
at a height probably of a thousand feet. In the first part of the 
_ road we passed through leafless thickets, as in Chatham Island. 
Higher up, the woods gradually became greener ; and as soon as 
we crossed the ridge of the island, we were cooled by a fine 
southerly breeze, and our sight refreshed by a green and thriving 
vegetation. In this upper region coarse grasses and ferns 
abound ; but there are no tree-ferns: I saw nowhere any member 
of the Palm family, which is the more singular, as 360 miles 
northward, Cocos Island takes its name from the number of 
cocoa-nuts. The houses are irregularly scattered over a flat 
space of ground, which is cultivated with sweet potatoes and 
bananas. It will not easily be imagined how pleasant the sight 
of black mud was to us, after having been so long accustomed to 
the parched soil of Peru and northern Chile. The inhabitants, 
although complaining of poverty, obtain, without much trouble, 
the means of subsistence. In the woods there are many wild 
pigs and goats; but the staple article of animal food is supplied 
by the tortoises. Their numbers have of course been greatly re- 
duced in this island, but the people yet count on two days’ hunt- 
ing giving them food for'the rest of the week. It is said that 
formerly single vessels have taken away as many as seven hun- 
dred, and that the ship’s company of a frigate some years since 
brought down in one day two hundred tortoises to the beach. 
September 29th.—We doubled the south-west extremity of 
Albemarle Island, and the next day were nearly becalmed be- 
tween it and Narborough Island. Both are covered with im- 
mense deluges of black naked Java, which have flowed either 
over the rims of the great caldrons, like pitch over the rim of a 
17 
