May.] PACIFIC OCEAN. 97 



has been represented by Cordova and others. In almost every respect, 

 however, they are a race of people far inferior to the Patagonians, and 

 not much less degraded than the natives of Terra del Fuego, whom 

 all navigators unite in pronouncing the most wretched race of mortals 

 on earth. 



Though the women are of much smaller size than the men, the 

 former are compelled to do all the labour and drudgery. They build 

 the wigwams, gather the shellfish, paddle the canoes, &c, while the 

 men either sit at their ease, or enjoy the pleasures of the chase. The 

 men, however, occasionally evince considerable fondness for their wives 

 and children. On the whole, I became somewhat interested in this 

 apparently wretched race, especially when I reflected on the probability 

 of their ancestors having been driven from more genial climes to this 

 mountainous region by the barbarity of strangers, who professed to be 

 patterns for the human race in civilization and religion. If such be 

 the fact, I wish these poor Indians might be informed that the iniquity 

 of their invaders has been severely visited on their own children, until 

 most of them, at the present moment, are more indolent, quite as filthy, 

 almost as ignorant, and far less innocent than the natives of Magellan's 

 Strait. Who shall say that the latter are not as much in the keeping 

 of the Deity as the former ? 



May V7th. — We left Indian Sound on Friday, the 16th, at seven 

 o'clock, A. M., as before stated, and laid our course across the strait 

 towards the Land of Fire. On the following day, at seven, P. M., we 

 were close in with the southern shore, when the wind hauled round to 

 the south-south-west. Having relinquished the hope of finding any 

 die- woods in this strait, although there are other woods of great value, 

 I concluded to make the best of our way to the Pacific Ocean. We 

 had now a fine breeze off-shore, and light snow-squalls during the 

 night. At daylight we were about five miles to the eastward of Cape 

 Pillar, which forms the north-western extremity of Terra del Fuego, 

 in the Pacific Ocean. 



May 18th. — At one o'clock, P. M., we landed on the Four Evan- 

 gelists, where we took one hundred and twenty-seven fur-seals. At 

 six, P. M., we were fairly clear of the strait, and floating on the bosom 

 of that immense ocean which stretches between America and Asia in 

 one direction, and the antarctic circle and Beehring's Strait in 

 another. We now commenced examining the Pacific coast to the north 

 of Cape Victory, which is the northern boundary of the western en- 

 trance of Magellan's Strait. I have already stated that the southern 

 boundary of this entrance is Cape Pillar, lying south-south-east from 

 Cape Victory, distant eight leagues. About midway between these 

 two capes are four small islands, or rocks, called the Four Evangelists, 

 just mentioned. Three of these are low, but the fourth is moderately 

 high, in appearance resembling a hay-stack. These islands lie in lat. 

 52° 34' S., long. 75° 8' W. The passages between them and the last- 

 mentioned capes are easy and free from danger. Variation per azi- 

 muth 23° 47' easterly. Cape Victory is in lat. 52° 24' S., long. 

 75° 3' W. G 



