1835. 



WENMAN ISLET DAMPIEH. 



501 



is a fine bold-looking cliff, at the west side, considerably higher 

 than any I had seen in the Galapagos. Mr. Chaffers soon 

 came alongside after we closed the land ; when, his orders being 

 all executed, the boat was hoisted in, and we made sail to the 

 north-west in search of Wenman and Culpepper Islets. 



Next day (20th) we saw and steered for Wenman Islet, an- 

 other crater of an extinct volcano. It is high, small, and quite 

 barren : correctly speaking, there are three islets and a large 

 rock, near each other, which, at a distance, appear as one island, 

 but they are fragments of the same crater. We afterwards passed 

 Culpepper Islet, which is a similar rocky, high, and barren 

 little island. At sun-set we made all sail and steered to get well 

 into the south-east trade wind, so as to expedite our passage 

 towards the dangerous archipelago of the Low Islands, and 

 thence to Otaheite (or Tahiti). While sailing away from the 

 Galapagos, impelled westward over a smooth sea, not only by 

 favouring easterly breezes but by a current that set more than 

 sixty miles to the west during the first twenty-four hours after 

 our losing sight of Culpepper Islet, and from forty to ten miles 

 each subsequent day until the 1st of November,* I will look 

 back at those strange islands, and make a few more remarks on 

 them. 



There are six principal ones, nine smaller, and many islets 

 scarcely deserving to be distinguished from mere rocks. The 

 largest island is sixty miles in length, and about fifteen broad ; 

 the highest part being four thousand feet above the sea. All 

 are of volcanic origin, and the lava, of which they are chiefly 

 composed, is excessively hard. Old Dampier says,-f* The Spa- 

 niards, when they first discovered these islands, found multi- 

 tudes of ' guanoes' and Jand-turtle, or tortoise, and named 

 them the Galapagos if Islands." Again, " the air of these 

 islands is temperate enough, considering the clime. Here is 

 constantly a fresh sea-breeze all day, and cooling refreshing 

 winds in the night ; therefore the heat is not so violent here 



* Lat. 10°. 14^ S. long. 120°. 35'. W. 



t Dampier's Voyage round the World, 1681—1691. (At the Gala- 

 pagos in 1684). X Galapago being Spanish for tortoise. 



