174 
PORT DESIRE 
CHAP. 
December 23 rd .—We arrived at Port Desire, situated in 
lat. 47 0 , 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 surface 
is quite level, and is composed of well-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, and the fine 
blue sky is but seldom obscured. When standing in the 
middle of one of these desert plains and looking towards the 
interior, the view is generally bounded by the escarpment of 
another plain, rather higher, but equally level and desolate ; 
and in every other direction the horizon is indistinct from the 
trembling mirage which seems to rise from the heated surface. 
In such a country the fate of the Spanish settlement was 
soon decided ; the dryness of the climate during the greater 
part of the year, and the occasional hostile attacks of the 
wandering Indians, compelled the colonists to desert their half- 
finished buildings. The style, however, in which they were com¬ 
menced shows the strong and liberal hand of Spain in the old 
time. The result of all the attempts to colonise this side of 
America south of 41 0 has been miserable. Port Famine 
expresses by its name the lingering and extreme sufferings of 
several hundred wretched people, of whom one alone survived 
to relate their misfortunes. At St. Joseph’s Bay, on the coast 
of Patagonia, a small settlement was made ; but during one 
Sunday the Indians made an attack and massacred the whole 
party, excepting two men, who remained captives during many 
years. At the Rio Negro I conversed with one of these men, 
now in extreme old age. 
The zoology of Patagonia is as limited as its Flora. 1 On 
1 I found here a species of cactus, described by Professor Henslow, under the 
name of Opuntia Darwinii (Magazine of Zoology and Botany , vol. i. p. 466), which 
