WESTERN PATAGONIA. 



56T 



over the isthmus ; the particulars of which are fully detailed in 

 their journals.* 



The river San Tadeo, although of small size, being navigable 

 only for eleven miles, is the largest river of the coast south of the 

 archipelago of Childe, and therefore merits a particular description. 

 At seven miles from the mouth it is fed by two streams or torrents, 

 the currents of which are so strong that a fast-pulling boat can 

 hardly make way against it. One of these streams takes its rise in 

 a mountainous range, over which perhaps the communicating road 

 passes; and the other is the drain of an extensive glacier or plain 

 of ice of fifteen miles in extent. The river falls into the Gulf of 

 St. Estevan over a shallow bar, upon which there is scarcely two 

 feet water, and at low tide is probably dry. 



At the head of St. Estevan Gulf is St. Quintin Sound; both 

 were examined and found to afford excellent anchorage, and they 

 are both of easy access should a ship, passing up the coast, find 

 herself upon a lee shore and not able to weather the land, as was 

 the case with the ill-fated Wager, t 



The Guaianeco islands form the southern head of the Gulf of 

 Penas ; then follows Wellington Island, separated from the main 

 by the Mesier Channel, which had not been previously explored, 

 its mouth only being laid down in the charts, compiled from the 

 information of Machado, a pilot who was sent in 1769 by the 

 Viceroy of Peru to examine the coast from Childe to the Strait 



* Agiieros, Descripcion Historial de la Provincia y Archipielago de 

 Chiloe, 1791, p. 229, 



t The precise situation of the wreck of this vessel had hitherto been 

 very vaguely marked on our charts : a careful perusal, however, of Byron's 

 narrative, and of Agiieros' account of the Missionary Voyages in 1779, 

 sufficiently points out the place within a few miles. It is on the north 

 side, near the west end of the easternmost of the Guaianeco islands, which 

 we named, in consequence. Wager Island. At Port Santa Barbara, seven- 

 teen miles to the southward of this group, a very old worm-eaten beam 

 of a vessel was found, which there is reason to think may be a relic of 

 that unfortunate ship. It was of English oak, and was found thrown up 

 above the high-water mark upon the rocks at the entrance of the port. 

 No other vestige was detected by us ; — the missionaries, however, found 

 broken glass bottles, and other evident traces of the wreck. At Chiloe I 

 saw a man who had formed one of this enterprising party, and obtained 

 from him a curious and interesting account of those voyages. 



