to the Strait of Magellan^ 



65 



vast plains (pampas) of the province of Buenos Ajres and the 

 Patagonian coast, from which it seems to have no sensible dif* 

 ference. 



On the south side of the strait, the Tierra del Fuego extends 

 westward from Cape Espiritu Santo, as far as Cape San Valen- 

 tin, and to the south-east, according to the account of the Nodales, 

 as far as Cape de Pinas, where the ground begins to rise up, 

 and to become mountainous : so that that portion of Tierra 

 del Fuego lying between the channel of St. Sebastian on the 

 south, and the Strait of Magellan and the channel of S. Maria 

 de la Cobeza on the north and west, may be considered as one 

 great field of low land, different in every respect from those 

 islands properly called the Tierra del Fuego.* 



From the above-mentioned Cape Negro on the main land, on 

 to that of Victoria, at the west extremity of the strait, the con- 

 tinent presents only a group of barren mountains, with some 

 plain ground at their bottom, which are the beginning of the 

 famous Cordilleras (chain) of the Andes, which divide South 

 America into eastern and western, running through it, north 

 and south, for the distance of 1,700 leagues. 



This Cordillera begins at the most southerly point of the 

 north coast of the Strait of Magellan, which is the Moro de San 

 Agueda, otherwise called Cape Forward, which may be consi- 

 dered to be the southern extremity of that vast continent, whose 

 northern limits are still so uncertain. 



Along the coast of Fuego also, from Cape San Valentin to 

 Cape Pilares, are geen pinnacles of prodigious height, whose 

 appearance is, if possible, still more horrid than that of the 

 mountains of the continent ; and showing, at first view, that 

 that part of the country is nothing but a group of islands, — a 

 manifest proof of the revolutions which our globe has under- 

 gone. 



The track of country which we distinguish by the appellatioa 

 plains, or low lands, is not so even as not to have sundry ine- 

 qualities formed by little hills, which occur so frequently, that 

 no considerable portion of the surface is free from heights and 

 hollows. In both these, the nature of the soil is of the same 

 quality, being a compound of darkish-coloured sandy earth; at 

 least, it is so on the surface, and we had no opportunities of 

 digging into it. Nevertheless, from v/hat we saw, la such places 

 as the ground is cut into along the shore, there seems to be oq 



* This tract of South America was not so called, the Land of Fire, from any 

 extraordinary heat experienced in its neighbourhood, but from the fires Jighted 

 up along the coasts, when the first navigators were seen in those seas. 



VoyA(:}Es and Travels, No, 5, FoL II. k 



