110 



FIRST NARROW RACE. 



Jan. 1828. 



the point of bursting over us with a deluge of rain, it suddenly 

 vanished, and was succeeded by a beautifully clear and fine 

 night. This favourable appearance gave us hopes of being 

 able to make good our entrance on the following day ; but a 

 fresh gale set in, and kept us at our anchorage. 



Early on the 14th we made another fruitless attempt to pass 

 the First Narrow. As the Adelaide sailed under our stern, 

 Lieutenant Graves informed me that he had lost an anchor, 

 and had only one left, to which he had bent his chain-cable ; 

 and that she had shipped so much water in attempting to beat 

 through, that he was on the point of asking permission to bear 

 up when we ourselves gave up the attempt. It blew too hard 

 to give any assistance to the Adelaide, but next morning, 

 when the weather was more moderate, I seized an opportunity 

 of sending our two kedge anchors ; and in the afternoon we 

 supplied her with some water and other necessaries, so that she 

 was comparatively well off, and my anxiety on her account 

 much relieved. 



Fires on the Fuegian side had been kept up since our arri- 

 val, but we could not distinguish any inhabitants; on the 

 Patagonian shores we saw a great number of guanacoes feeding 

 quietly, a proof of there being no Indians near them. 



On the 16th, the weather appearing favourable, our anchor 

 was weighed, and, with the Adelaide, we soon entered the 

 sluice of the Narrow, proceeding rapidly, though the wind blew 

 hard against us. The tide carried us to an anchorage, about 

 four miles beyond the western entrance, and it was slack water 

 when the anchor was dropped ; but, no sooner had the stream 

 turned, than we found ourselves in the midst of a ' race,^ 

 and during the whole tide, the water broke furiously over the 

 ship. At slack water we got underweigh, but the Adelaide 

 not being able (from the strength of the tide), to purchase her 

 anchor, was obliged to slip the cable : it was fortunate that 

 we had supplied her with our kedges, or she would then have 

 been without an anchor. The night was tempestuous, and 

 although we reached a much quieter birth, the Adelaide drifted 

 considerably ; had she remained at the morning^s anchorage, 



