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398 CHARLES DARWIN 



duced in this island, but the people yet count on two days' 

 hunting giving them food for the rest of the week. It is 

 said that formerly single vessels have taken away as many 

 as seven hundred, and that the ship's company of a frigate 

 some years since brought down in one day two hundred 

 tortoises to the beach. 



September 29th. — We doubled the south-west extremity of 

 Albemarle Island, and the next day were nearly becalmed 

 between it and Narborough Island. Both are covered with 

 immense deluges of black naked lava, which have flowed 

 either over the rims of the great caldrons, like pitch over the 

 rim of a pot in which it has been boiled, or have burst forth 

 from smaller orifices on the flanks; in their descent they 

 have spread over miles of the sea-coast. On both of these 

 islands, eruptions are known to have taken place; and in 

 Albemarle, we saw a small jet of smoke curling from the 

 summit of one of the great craters. In the evening we an- 

 chored in Bank's Cove, in Albemarle Island. The next 

 morning I went out walking. To the south of the broken 

 tuff-crater, in which the Beagle was anchored, there was 

 another beautifully symmetrical one of an elliptic form; its 

 longer axis was a little less than a mile, and its depth about 

 500 feet. At its bottom there was a shallow lake, in the 

 middle of which a tiny crater formed an islet. The day was 

 overpoweringly hot, and the lake looked clear and blue: I 

 hurried down the cindery slope, and, choked with dust, 

 eagerly tasted the water — but, to my sorrow, I found it salt 

 as brine. 



The rocks on the coast abounded with great black lizards, 

 between three and four feet long ; and on the hills, an ugly 

 yellowish-brown species was equally common. We saw 

 many of this latter kind, some clumsily running out of the 

 way, and others shuffling into their burrows. I shall pres- 

 ently describe in more detail the habits of both these reptiles. 

 The whole of this northern part of Albemarle Island is 

 miserably sterile. 



October 8th. — We arrived at James Island: this island, as 

 well as Charles Island, were long since thus named after our 

 kings of the Stuart line. Mr. Bynoe, myself, and our serv- 

 ants were left here for a week, with provisions and a tent, 



