4 



PASSAGE OF 



termitting light. The seamen at once set it down 

 as a revolving light-house, to which, certainly, it 

 bore no inconsiderable resemblance. Others in- 

 sisted that it must be a forest on fire ; accounting 

 for the changes in brilliancy by flaws of wind fan- 

 ning the flames. But all who examined the light 

 carefully through a telescope, agreed in consider- 

 ing it a volcano like Stromboli, emitting from 

 time to time jets of flame and of red hot stones, 

 which, falling on the sides of the mountain, re- 

 tained for a short space a visible redness. 



This singular light continued visible until 

 morning, but faded away with the first appearance 

 of dawn; and although, during the night, it seem- 

 ed not above eight or ten miles distant, to our 

 surprise, no land was now distinguishable in the 

 direction of the volcano : and we found, by means 

 of bearings taken with the compass, that it ac- 

 tually was upwards of a hundred miles from the 

 ship, on the main land of Tierra del Fuego. It 

 is not improbable, that a similar volcano may 

 have led Magellan to give the title. Land of Fire, 

 to this desolate region. 



By six o'clock in the morning of the 26th of 



