460 



PORT DESIRE— NO ARIEL ROCKS. 



June 1830. 



the turn of tide in our favour carried us towards the entrance 

 of the harbour, into which we worked, the tide of ebb having 

 just ended ; and we moored afbreast of the ruins. My first 

 care was to look for traces of the Adventure or Adelaide, but 

 I found none. A bottle which I had deposited for the Adelaide, 

 at our last visit, by Captain King's direction, was exactly 

 where I then left it, and the papers it contained were untouched. 

 While in this port I got good observations, the weather being 

 clear, though very cold. No guanacoes were shot although 

 many were seen, but numbers of sea-birds were brought on 

 board.* A quince was given to me which was found in a 

 place where the Spanish colony had made a garden. We 

 remarked that the tracks of the guanacoes on shore here were 

 not so large, by one-half, as those we had so lately seen in 

 Tierra del Fuego. Having noticed the currents particularly, 

 in order to compare them with what I observed formerly and 

 with the tide in the port ; I can now say, decidedly, that the 

 flood tide comes from the southward, and that the ebb sets to 

 the south-east. North of Port Desire, or from Port Desire 

 to Cape Blanco, the flood is much the strongest, but ofl* 

 Penguin Island the ebb is, I think, the strongest, setting two 

 or three knots an hour. It is high- water and slack- water, in 

 Port Desire, at half-past twelve, on the days of full and 

 change. The tides, if not attended to, would baffle a ship 

 much in making this port. 



" On the 21st we sailed, with a fresh breeze from the S.W. ; 

 and at nine a.m. on the ^th when about one mile south- 

 ward of the alleged position of the Ariel rocks, and near the 

 nominal longitude, I hauled to the wind and ran some distance 

 on their parallel, looking out for broken water. There was a 

 very irregular and heavy swell, as much as would be raised by 

 a gale of wind, but caused apparently by a current ; and while 

 waiting for the meridian altitude, before bearing up, having 

 run twenty miles on the same parallel, a heavy swell rose on 

 the quarter, which struck our weather quarter boat, and turned 



* The powder and shot expended here procured four meals of fresh 

 provisions for all hands. 



