178 
PATAGONIA 
CHAP. 
at the time exclaimed that it was the burial-ground of all the 
goats in the island. I mention these trifling circumstances, 
because in certain cases they might explain the occurrence of a 
number of uninjured bones in a cave, or buried under alluvial 
accumulations ; and likewise the cause why certain animals are 
more commonly embedded than others in sedimentary deposits. 
One day the yawl was sent under the command of Mr. 
Chaffers with three days’ provisions to survey the upper part of 
the harbour. In the morning we searched for some watering- 
places mentioned in an old Spanish chart. We found one creek, 
at the head of which there was a trickling rill (the first we had 
seen) of brackish water. Here the tide compelled us to wait 
several hours ; and in the interval I walked some miles into 
the interior. The plain as usual consisted of gravel, mingled 
with soil resembling chalk in appearance, but very different 
from it in nature. From the softness of these materials it was 
worn into many gulleys. There was not a tree, and, excepting 
the guanaco, which stood on the hilltop a watchful sentinel 
over its herd, scarcely an animal or a bird. All was stillness 
and desolation. Yet in passing over these scenes, without one 
bright object near, an ill-defined but strong sense of pleasure is 
vividly excited. One asked how many ages the plain had thus 
lasted, and how many more it was doomed thus to continue. 
None can reply—all seems eternal now. 
The wilderness has a mysterious tongue, 
Which teaches awful doubt. 1 
In the evening we sailed a few miles farther up, and then 
pitched the tents for the night. By the middle of the next da y 
the yawl was aground, and from the shoalness of the water could 
not proceed any higher. The water being 'found partly fresh, 
Mr. Chaffers took the dingey and went up two or three miles 
farther, where she also grounded, but in a fresh-water river. 
The water was muddy, and though the stream was most insigni¬ 
ficant in size, it would be difficult to account for its origin, 
except from the melting snow on the Cordillera. At the spot 
where we bivouacked, we were surrounded by bold cliffs and 
steep pinnacles of porphyry. I do not think I ever saw a spot 
which appeared more secluded from the rest of the world than 
this rocky crevice in the wide plain. 
1 Shelley, Lines on M. Blanc. 
