PASSAGES. 



55 



RIO NEGRO TOWARDS ORANGE HARBOR, TIERRA DEL FTJEGO. 



From the 3d to 17th February, 1839. 



We made this passage in 13 days; it was considered a favorable 

 one. Our route was farther off the coast than I desired, in conse- 

 quence of experiencing for the first two days fresh gales from the south- 

 west, accompanied with a heavy sea, which drove us off the coast ; it 

 would have been but lost time to have regained the coast, and fol- 

 lowed it down on soundings. One of the squadron, the Relief, sighted 

 the coast frequently on her passage from Rio de Janeiro to Orange 

 Harbor, stopping for two days at Good Success Bay ; she made the 

 passage in 42 days, the same length of time taken by the squadron, 

 although we passed eight days off Rio Negro. On the seventh day 

 we reached the Straits of Le Maire, previous to which we passed near 

 to, but a little to the westward of the place assigned the L'Aigle 

 Rock : its position is given as latitude 51° 50' south, longitude 64° 45' 

 west, which had been searched for previously by others without 

 success. 



The weather we met with before entering the Straits of Le Maire 

 was boisterous, but not more so than we anticipated or had reason to 

 expect. The winds prevailed mostly from the northward; those from 

 the southward were dry and cold ; the northerly ones brought damp 

 and rainy weather : they change to the southward and westward by 

 the north and west ; the precursor of this change is usually a heavy 

 bank of cumuli in that quarter. The barometer was an indicator of 

 bad weather ; but I here observed, for the first time, that the wind did 

 not begin to blow until the mercury began to rise. Any change from 

 the northward to the southward was attended by a fall in tempera- 

 ture of several degrees. 



The winds on the east coast of South America for the most part 

 prevail from the northward and eastward, or the southward and west- 

 ward, and very seldom are found to remain long in the southeast ; but 

 the severest gales that are felt in these latitudes are from that quarter. 



Off the coast, near Watchman's Cape, lie the Bellaco Rocks. There 

 are two distinct rocks, bearing from each other south 17° east (true). 

 The northernmost was seen by Captain Stokes, in 1828; he placed it 

 in latitude 48° 30' 50" south, and longitude 66° 09' 25" west. The 



