470 



TUCAPEL HEAD DELAYS. 



July 



I should have mentioned that we spoke the schooner at eight 

 in the morning, when Mr. Usborne said they had seen nothing 

 in their run along-shore on the 26th, the only clear day they 

 had had. After speaking us, he kept to the northward, intend- 

 ing, as we concluded, to close the land about Tucapel Head, 

 and again run along-shore to the southward. In the haze we 

 quickly lost sight of the schooner ; but thinking that we should 

 soon meet again in clearer weather, little notice was taken of 

 this circumstance, which was afterwards so much regretted. 

 Continual thick weather prevented any observations being 

 taken, as well as the land from being seen, until the 2d of 

 July, when Tucapel Head was indistinctly made oul in the 

 distance. But strong wind and a high sw^ell were reasons suffi- 

 cient to keep the Blonde far in the offing, while thick hazy 

 weather lasted ; and after making the land we actually stood to 

 sea again, without even attempting to show the ship to the 

 poor fellows on shore. In the course of this night a few stars 

 were seen ; and their altitudes were the only observations that 

 could have been obtained at any moment since we left Concep- 

 cion Bay, during six days of constantly clouded and hazy 

 weather, in which neither sun, moon, nor stars, nor even the 

 horizon could be seen ! 



On the Sd, Tucapel Head was again made out indistinctly ; 

 but nothing v/as done, a wide offing being still preserved. 



On the 4th, the weather had improved enough to allow of a 

 partial view of the coast between the supposed place of the 

 Leiibu and Cape Tirua ; but no signal-fire, nor any thing like 

 a flag, could be perceived on any of the heights. 



Land appears so different when viewed from an offing at sea 

 and when seen closely, especially from the land side, that it 

 is less surprising that Vogelberg, who had visited the Letibu 

 dozens of times by land, and also by sea in a boat, should be 

 as much at a loss as myself to recognise the height which we 

 had both ascended with Captain Seymour. 



How it happened that I, who had surveyed this coast, should 

 be ignorant of the real place of the Leiibu, as I then certainly 

 was, is another affair entirely, and one which I feel bound to 



