Dec. 1833. port desire. 193 



almost to call it a kind of respiration) the ocean becomes 

 purified. 



December 23d. — We arrived at Port Desire^ situated in 

 lat. 47°, on the coast of Patagonia. The creek runs for about 

 twenty miles inland, with an irregular width. The Beagle 

 anchored a few miles within the entrance in front of the 

 ruins of an old Spanish settlement. 



The same evening I went on shore. The first landing in 

 any new country is very interesting, and especially when, as in 

 this case, the whole aspect bears the stamp of a marked and 

 individual character. At the height of between two and three 

 hundred feet, above some masses of porphyry, a wide plain 

 extends, which is truly characteristic of Patagonia. The sur- 

 face is quite level, and is composed of wxll-rounded shingle 

 mixed with a whitish earth. Here and there scattered tufts 

 of brown wiry grass are supported, and still more rarely 

 some low thorny bushes. The weather is dry and pleasant, 

 for the fine blue sky is but seldom obscured. AVhen stand- 

 ing in the middle of one of these desert plains, the view on 

 one side is generally bounded by the escarpment of another 

 plain, rather higher, but equally level and desolate ; and on 

 the other side it becomes indistinct from the trembling: 

 mirage which seems to rise from the heated surface. 



The plains are traversed by many broad, fiat-bottomed 

 valleys, and in these the bushes grow rather more abund- 

 antly. The present drainage of the country is quite insuf- 

 ficient to excavate such large channels. In some of the 

 valleys ancient stunted trees, growing in the very centre of 

 tlie dry watercourse, seem as if placed to prove how long a 

 time had elapsed, since any flood had passed that way. We 

 have evidence, from shells lying on the surface, that the 

 plains of gravel have been elevated within a recent epoch 

 above the level of the sea ; and we must look to that period 

 for the excavation of the valleys by the slowly-retiring 

 waters. From the dryness of the climate, a man may walk 

 for days together over these plains without finding a single 

 drop of water. Even at the base of the porph5^ry hills, there 



VOL. III. O 



