FROM VALPARAISO TO PORTSMOUTH. 
188 
experienced was a dream.” The circumstances are here set forth with some minuteness of 
detail in order that future travellers in the same locality may learn to avoid, when possible, 
one of the most serious dangers that can befall the lonely wanderer on shore. 
At the hour of our departure next morning, we found that the conflagration had spread 
inland, and far up the mountain slopes. In the vicinity of the harbour a legion of charred 
tree-stumps alone marked the site of the green woods of the day before. Such fires, however, 
are of frequent occurrence, and after a few years a new vegetation, even more luxuriant 
than heretofore, effaces the last trace of the destruction which a single spark of fire may bring 
about. Forests never touched by the hand of man are especially liable to suffer in this 
manner. The trees die on the spot on which they grew up, and for long years afterwards 
their trunks and branches, bleached by the storms, extend their white arms in fanciful 
contortions above the young growths around them. The great number of these dead trees 
scattered through the Patagonian woods, either still standing or stretched on the ground, 
together with an accumulation of branches, leaves, and dry moss, form ample materials for 
feeding a fire. In the present case the flames seemed to rush over the ground, swallowing 
up many yards of forest in the twinkling of an eye. 
At noon, on the 4th, H.M.S. “Challenger” passed the English Narrows. There was 
just room enough for the ship to turn, as the channel here makes a bend, and a favourable 
moment of the tide had to be selected to effect the passage. But for this obstacle, the large 
mail steamers which traverse Magellan Strait might escape the dangers of the stormy west 
coast of Patagonia, by taking the inner channels as far as the Gulf of Penas. The scenery 
of the English Narrows, adorned with small tree-covered islands, and overlooked by steep 
bluffs, is very attractive. The same evening we anchored in Port Grappler, a sombre, 
dismal-looking inlet, shut in by bare rocks. In the gloom we descried near a little island in 
the harbour the form of a sunken vessel. It proved to be a German steamer, the “ Karnac,” 
belonging to Hamburg, with a cargo of silver ore, leather, saltpetre, sugar, &c. The captain, 
passengers, and crew had been taken off the wreck by a French surveying vessel, and 
fonvarded to Punta Arenas. This information was given us by an Englishman, one of four 
belonging to a Chilian company who had taken charge of the wreck. They hoped to float 
the ship and save part of the cargo, with the assistance of a- steamer expected from Valparaiso. 
Next day we passed through Ice Reach and Wide Channel, and anchored in Tom 
Bay, near the entrance of the Trinidad Channel, which opens out into the Pacific. A 
contemplated survey of this channel had to be given up, the weather being stormy and 
wet, with no promise of improvement. The mountains which overlook the Trinidad Channel, 
more especially the group of elevated peaks marking the southern extremity of Wellington 
Island, form an imposing panorama. One of these peaks, from its shape, is called the 
“Cathedral Mountain.” The “roof” of this cathedral, over 3000 feet high, is covered with 
snow, and, like the famous minster of Strasbourg, it has but one steeple. Another mountain 
in the same group, the “ Double Peak,” rises to 3300 feet. On the 7th it was thought 
advisable to shift to a safer anchorage in the same bay. Tom Bay in Madre Island boasts 
