May 1828. 



PORT XAVIER— YGNACIO BAY. 



177 



" The following day (27th) a grave was dug, and we dis- 

 charged the last sad duties to our departed shipmate. A wooden 

 cross was erected at the head of his grave, on which was an 

 inscription to his memory : we also named the south point of 

 the bay after him. About noon we left Port Xavier, and coasted 

 the island, at the mean distance of a mile, examining it for 

 anchorages, until, after a run of eight miles, we reached its 

 south point. For the first four or five miles of that distance, 

 the coast of the island consisted of a high steep cM', having at 

 its base a narrow beach, composed of various-sized masses of 

 rock. In the interior there were heights, rising twelve or four- 

 teen hundred feet, wooded nearly to the summits, with many 

 streams of water descending from them ; but for the remainder 

 of the distance the coast was low, and the wood stunted and 

 scanty. All along the shore rolled a heavy surf, that would 

 have rendered any attempt to land exceedingly hazardous ; 

 there was no place fit for anchorage, except a small bight, near 

 the extreme south point, into which we stood, and with some 

 difficulty succeeded in anchoring at a cable's length from the 

 shore. The bay proved to be that called by the Spanish mis- 

 sionary voyagers ' Ygnacio Bay.' Over the south point, — a nar- 

 row tongue of land, about five hundred yards across, with 

 rocks and breakers stretching off shore, to the distance of two 

 miles, — we took bearings and angles to various fixed points in 

 the northern part of the gulf. The latitude, chronometric dif- 

 ferences of longitude, and magnetic variation, were determined 

 on shore at this southern point. 



" Our observations being completed, we left this anchorage ; 

 and as it is little likely to be visited again, it will be enough to 

 say that it is exceedingly dangerous. Nothing would have 

 induced me to enter it, but the duty of examining the coast for 

 anchorage, and the danger of remaining under sail close to an 

 unexplored shore. 



" Under an impression that the island of St. Xavier* was the 



* Xavier's Island is certainly the Montrose Island of Byron's Narra- 

 tive. The Wager was lost, as will be seen, raore to the southward, on the 

 Guaianeco Islands. 



vol. I. ' N 



