184 



CHARLES DARWIN 



The common prejudice of lying where one's ancestors have 

 lain, would make the now roaming Indians bring the less 

 perishable part of their dead to their ancient burial-ground 

 on the coast. 



January gth, jtf^.-^Before it was dark the Beagle an- 

 chored in the fine spacious harbour of Port St. Julian, situated 

 about one hundred and ten miles to the south of Port Desire. 

 We remained here eight days. The country is nearly similar 

 to that of Port Desire, but perhaps rather more sterile. One 

 day a party accompanied Captain Fitz Roy on a long walk 

 round the head of the harbour. We were eleven hours with- 

 out tasting any water, and some of the . party were quite 

 exhausted. From the summit of a hill (since well named 

 Thirsty Hill) a fine lake was spied, and two of the party pro- 

 ceeded with concerted signals to show whether it was fresh 

 water. What was our disappointment to find a snow-white 

 expanse of salt, crystallized in great cubes ! We attributed 

 our extreme thirst to the dryness of the atmosphere; but 

 whatever the cause might be, we were exceedingly glad late 

 in the evening to get back to the boats. Although we could 

 nowhere find, during our whole visit, a single drop of fresh 

 water, yet some must exist ; for by an odd chance I found oh 

 the surface of the salt water, near the head of the bay, a! 

 Colymbetes not quite dead, which must have lived in some 

 not far distant pool. Three other insects (a Cincindela, like 

 hybrida, a Cymindis, and a Harpalus, which all live on muddy 

 flats occasionally overflowed by the sea), and one other 

 found dead on the plain, complete the list of the beetles. A 

 good-sized fly (Tabanus) was extremely numerous, and tor- 

 mented us by its painful bite. The common horsefly, which 

 is so troublesome in the shady lanes of England, belongs to 

 this same genus. We here have the puzzle that so frequently 

 occurs in the case of musquitoes — on the blood of what 

 animals do these insects commonly feed? The guanaco is 

 nearly the only warm-blooded quadruped, and it is found in 

 quite inconsiderable numbers compared with the multitude 

 of flies. 



The geology of Patagonia is interesting. Differently from 

 Europe, where the tertiary formations appear to have accu- 



