122 GUANACOES CAPE HORN. DcC 



he could not resist telling us was, that the old man said he was 

 dirty, and ought to pull out his beard. Now, if their language 

 differed much from that of York Minster, or was indeed other 

 than a dialect of the same original, it is not probable that 

 York could have understood the old man's meaning so readily 

 when he spoke quietly, without signs. 



Richard Matthews was with us, but did not appear to be at 

 all discouraged by a close inspection of these natives. He 

 remarked to me, that " they were no worse than he had sup- 

 posed them to be." 



20th. Soon after day-light this morning, some very large 

 guanacoes were seen near the top of Banks Hill.* They 

 walked slowly and heavily, and their tails hung down to their 

 hocks. To me their size seemed double that of the guanacoes 

 about Port Desire. Mr. Darwin and a party set off to ascend 

 the heights, anxious to get a shot at the guanacoes and obtain 

 an extended view, besides making observations. They reached 

 the summit, and saw several large animals, whose long woolly 

 coats and tails added to their real bulk, and gave them an 

 appearance quite distinct from that of the Patagonian animal ; 

 but they could not succeed in shooting one. 



21st. Sailed from Good Success Bay. On the 22d we saw 

 Cape Horn, and being favoured with northerly winds, passed 

 close to the southward of it before three o'clock. The wind then 

 shifted to north-west, and began to blow strong. Squalls came 

 over the heights of Hermite Island, and a very violent one, 

 with thick weather, decided my standing out to sea for the 

 night under close-reefed topsails. The weather continued bad 

 and very cold during that night and next day. 



On the morning of the 24th, being off Cape Spencer, with 

 threatening weather, a high sea, the barometer low, and great 

 heavy-looking white clouds rising in the south-west, indicative 

 of a gale from that quarter, I determined to seek for an an- 

 chorage, and stood into (the so-calledt) St. Francis Bay. In 



* So named in remembrance of Sir Joseph Banks's excursion, 

 t In the first volume doubts are expressed (in a note to page 199) 

 respecting the place nam^d by D'Arquistade, St. Francis Bay; or rather> 



I said' 



