CHAPTER VI. 
TERRA DEL FUEGO. 
18 39. 
Orange Harbour is on the western side of Nassau Bay, separated 
and protected from it by Burnt Island. It is nearly land-locked, and 
is the safest harbour on the coast. The hills on each side, after 
several undulations, rise into conical peaks, and the naked rock is 
every where broken into a jagged outline, with no creeping plants to 
soften or take off its harshness. Every thing has a bleak and wintry 
appearance, and is in excellent keeping with the climate; yet the 
scenery about it is pleasing to the eye, bounded on all sides by 
undulating hills, which are covered with evergreen foliage. Distant 
mountains, some of which are capped with snow, shooting up in a 
variety of forms, seen beyond the extensive bays, form a fine back- 
ground. From the vessels, the hills look like smooth downs, and if 
it were not for the inclemency and ntfulness of the weather, they 
might be contemplated with some pleasure. 
The hills are covered with dense forests of beech, birch, willow, 
and winter-bark. Some of the former are forty or fifty feet high, 
having all their tops bent to the northeast by the prevailing south- 
west winds. They are remarkably even as to height, having more 
the look, at a distance, of heath, than of forest trees. 
The whole coast has the appearance of being of recent volcanic 
rocks, but all our investigations tended to prove to the contrary. We 
nowhere found any cellular lava, pumice, or obsidian, nor was there 
any granite, or other primitive rock seen, though reported by Captain 
King as existing. The rock was trachytic, or of trap formation, 
apparently having undergone more or less action by fire. 
