166 MOUNTAINS INDIAN WIGWAMS. April 



purpose of obtaining bearings of remote points : he remarked 

 to me, ' that many miles were passed over in ascending even 

 moderate heights ; the land was very high and very irregular ; 

 the mountains seemed not to lie in any uniform direction, and 

 the longest chain that was observed did not exceed five miles. 

 The flat land between the heights was never two miles in 

 extent : the ground was always swampy, and generally there 

 were small lakes receiving the drainage of mountain-streams. 

 Indeed the whole country appeared broken and unconnected/ 



" Some of the mountains were ascertained to be S,500 feet 

 high, but the general height was about 2,000 feet. A large 

 island, on the northern side of the harbour, is an excellent 

 watering-place, at which casks may be conveniently filled in 

 the boat. It is also an object of great natural beauty : the 

 hill, which forms its western side, rises to seven or eight hun- 

 dred feet, almost perpendicularly, and when viewed from its 

 base in a boat, seems stupendous : it is clothed with trees, 

 among which the light-green leaves of the Winter's-bark tree^ 

 and the red flowers of the Fuchsia, unite their tints with the 

 darker foliage of other trees. This perpendicular part extends 

 to the northward till it is met by the body of the mountain, 

 which is arched into a spacious cavern, fifty yards wide and a 

 hundred feet high, whose sides are clothed with a rich growth 

 of shrubs ; and before it a cascade descends down the steep 

 face of the mountain. 



" On the shore we found two Indian wigwams and the remains 

 of a third ; but they had evidently been long deserted, for the 

 grass had grown up both around and within them to the height 

 of more than a foot. These wigwams were exactly similar to 

 those in the Strait of Magalhaens : one was larger than any 

 I had met with, being eighteen feet in diameter. The only land 

 birds I saw were two owls, which passed by us after dusk with 

 a screeching noise. 



" On the patches of sandy beach, in the inner harbour, we 

 hauled the seine, but unsuccessfully ; we expected to find fish 

 plentiful here, from seeing many seals on the rocks outside, 

 and from finding the water quite red with the spawn of cray- 



