374 



PORT LOW STOKEk''s JOURNAL. 



Jan. 



Chiloe or Southern Chile. I should be glad to learn that this 

 suspicion is ill-founded.* 



On the 7th we anchored in Port Low, and found Mr. Stokes 

 just arrived, after a fagging cruise among the Chonos islands. 

 His journal contains a great deal of information, from which 

 I have extracted those passages most likely to interest the gene- 

 ral reader. 



His whale-boat was so loaded at starting (16th Dec.) that 

 her gunwale amidships was but a foot above water. She was 

 twenty-five feet long and six feet broad, and then carried seven 

 men, besides instruments and a month's provisions. Of water 

 she had only two ' barecas,' because on that coast fresh water is 

 only too plentiful. In passing a promontory, the following 

 day, while their boat was still deep, the swell became so great 

 that Mr. Low said he had never before been in a boat exposed 

 to greater danger. 



In some places where they landed the woods were so thick 

 that Mr. Stokes was obliged to climb trees to get angles ; and 

 not being able to tell previously which would answer his pur- 

 pose, sometimes he made three or four useless ascents, before 

 he could obtain a view : " but," he says " there is a pleasure I 

 cannot express in roaming over places never visited by civilized 

 man.''' On Rowlett Island potatoes were found growing wild ; 

 the largest dug up measured two inches in length, and an inch 

 in thickness : they were quite tasteless. 



At the east side of Ipun, on Narborough Island, an excellent 

 small port was found, which was named Scotchwell Harbour. 

 On the shore, near it, was a large bed of strawberries, like those 

 that grow in English woods ; and there was a sweet-scented 

 pea, besides abundance of other vegetable produce, both her- 

 bage and wood, and plenty of water. 



" Hitherto, all the islands we had seen were of slate-rock, 

 some parts so soft, that I could break them easily with my 

 finger, and I found that they blacked my hand, like plumbago ; 



• It is difficult to account for the present abandoned state of these 

 regions, if no harsh usage was experienced by their former natives. 



