1833. 



UI^ICORN GALES — WRECKS. 



273 



desire to get it for my collection. Being alone and finding the 

 water cold, he may have become alarmed, then accidentally 

 entangling his legs in the sea-weed, lost his presence of mind, 

 and by struggling hastily was only more confused. The 

 rising tide must have considerably augmented his distress, and 

 hastened the fatal result. 



5th. This day we buried the body of our lamented young 

 friend, on a rising ground near Johnson Cove, in sight of our 

 ship. All the French attended the melancholy ceremony, as 

 well as all our own party, excepting the very few who were 

 obliged to stay on board. 



6th. An agreement was brought about, and witnessed by me, 

 between M. le Dilly and the master of the Rapid schooner, by 

 which the latter bound himself to convey to Monte Video those 

 of the Magellan's crew whom the Beagle could not carry : and 

 next day another French whaler arrived (the fourth we had 

 lately seen), belonging to the owners of the Magellan, so there 

 was no longer any want of help for M. le Dilly. 



A few days afterwards a sealing schooner, the Unicorn, 

 arrived, Mr. William Low being sealing master and part owner; 

 and, although considered to be the most enterprizing and intel- 

 ligent sealer on those shores, perhaps anywhere, the weather had 

 been so much against him that he returned from his six months' 

 cruise a ruined man, with an empty ship. All his means had 

 been employed to forward the purchase and outfit of the fine 

 vessel in which he sailed ; but having had, as he assured me, a 

 continued succession of gales during sixty-seven days, and, tak- 

 ing it altogether, the worst season he had known during twenty 

 years' experience, he had been prevented from taking seal, and 

 was ruined. Passengers with him were the master and crew of 

 a North American sealing schooner, the Transport, which had 

 been wrecked on the south-west coast of Tierra del Fuego, 

 in Hope Harbour ; and he told me of two other wrecks, all 

 occasioned by the gale of January 12-1 3th. 



At this time I had become more fully convinced than ever 

 that the Beagle could not execute her allotted task before she, 

 and those in her, would be so much in need' of repair and rest, 



VOL. II. T 



