Chapter X
Set out to land Matthews and the Fuegians--Their meeting with Natives--Supposed Volcano--Dream--Oens-men--Scene--Arrival at Woollȳa--Encampment--Concourse of Natives--Jemmy’s Family--Wigwams --Gardens--Distrust--Experiment--Westward Exploration--Remove Matthews--Revisit Woollȳa--Gale--Sail for the Falkland Islands.
At the end of Chapter VI., I described our preparations for landing the Fuegians, who had been in England, among their own countrymen; and now, having attempted to give a fuller idea of those people, the narrative of our proceedings shall be continued.
Jan. 19, 1833. The yawl, being heavily laden, was towed by the other three boats, and, while her sails were set, went almost as fast as they did; but after passing Cape Rees, and altering our course to the westward, we were obliged to drag her along by strength of arm against wind and current. The first day no natives were seen, though we passed along thirty miles of coast, and reached Cutfinger Cove. (This name was given because one of our party, Robinson by name, almost deprived himself of two fingers by an axe slipping with which he was cutting wood.) At this place, or rather from a hill above it, the view was striking. Close to us was a mass of very lofty heights, shutting out the cold southerly winds, and collecting a few rays of sunshine which contrived to struggle through the frequent clouds of Tierra del Fuego. Opposite, beyond a deep arm of the sea, five miles wide, appeared an extensive range of mountains, whose extremes the eye could not trace; and to the westward we saw an immense canal, looking like a work of gigantic art, extending between parallel ranges of mountains, of which the summits were capped with snow, though their sides were covered by endless forests. This singular canal-like passage is almost straight and of nearly an uniform width (overlooking minute details) for one hundred and twenty miles.
20th. We passed the clay cliffs, spoken of in the former volume, first visited by Mr. Murray. They narrow the channel to less than a mile, but, being low, were beneath the horizon of our eye at Cutfinger Cove:--westward of them the channel widens again to its usual breadth of two miles. Several natives were seen in this day’s pull; but as Jemmy told us they were not his friends, and often made war upon his people, we held very little intercourse with them. York laughed heartily at the first we saw, calling them large monkeys; and Jemmy assured us they were not at all like his people, who were very good and very clean. Fuegia was shocked and ashamed; she hid herself, and would not look at them a second time. It was interesting to observe the change which three years only had made in their ideas, and to notice how completely they had forgotten the appearance and habits of their former associates; for it turned out that Jemmy’s own tribe was as inferior in every way as the worst of those whom he and York called “monkeys--dirty--fools--not men.”
We gave these ‘Yapoos,’ as York called them, some presents, and crossed over to the north side of the channel to be free from their importunities; but they followed us speedily, and obliged us to go on further westward than was at all agreeable, considering the labour required to make way against a breeze and a tide of a mile an hour. When we at last landed to pass the night, we found that the forests on the sides of the mountains had been burned for many leagues; and as we were not far from the place where a volcano was supposed to exist, in consequence of flames having been seen by a ship passing Cape Horn, it occurred to me that some conflagration, like that of which we found the signs, might have caused appearances resembling the eruption of a distant volcano: and I have since been confirmed in this idea, from having witnessed a volcano in eruption; and, not long afterwards, a conflagration, devouring many miles of mountain forest; both of which, at a distance, shewed lines of fire, fitful flashes, and sudden gleams. Persons who have witnessed a forest burning on the side of a mountain, will easily perceive how, when seen from a distance, it may resemble the eruption of a volcano; but to those who have not seen fire on such a scale, I may remark that each gust of wind, or temporary calm; each thick wood, or comparatively barren space; augments or deadens the flames so suddenly, as the fire sweeps along the mountain side, that, at a distance of fifty miles or more, the deception may be complete.
22d. Favoured by beautiful weather, we passed along a tract of country where no natives were seen. Jemmy told us it was “land between bad people and his friends;” (neutral-ground probably). This evening we reached a cove near the Murray Narrow; and from a small party of Tekeenica natives, Jemmy’s friends, whom we found there, he heard of his mother and brothers, but found that his father was dead. Poor Jemmy looked very grave and mysterious at the news, but showed no other symptom of sorrow. He reminded Bennett[1] of the dream (related in the previous chapter), and then went for some green branches, which he burned, watching them with a solemn look: after which he talked and laughed as usual, never once, of his own accord, recurring to the subject of his father’s decease. The language of this small party, who were the first of Jemmy’s own tribe whom we met, seemed softer and less guttural than those of the “bad men” whom we had passed near the clay cliffs; and the people themselves seemed much better disposed, though as abject and degraded in outward appearance as any Fuegians I had ever seen. There were three men and two women: when first we were seen they all ran away, but upon two of our party landing and advancing quietly, the men returned and were soon at their ease. Jemmy and York then tried to speak to them; but to our surprise, and much to my sorrow, we found that Jemmy had almost forgotten his native language, and that, of the two, York, although belonging to another tribe, was rather the best interpreter. In a few minutes the natives comprehended that we should do them no harm; and they then called back their women, who were hiding in the woods, and established themselves, very confidently, in a wigwam within a hundred yards of our tents. During this and the preceding day, we found the weather, by comparison, so mild, even warm, that several of our party bathed; yet the thermometer ranged only to 53° in the shade, and at night fell to 40°. The temperature of the sea was 48°.
Being within a few hours’ pull (row) of Jemmy’s ‘own land,’ which he called Woollȳa, we all felt eager, though anxious, and I was much gratified by seeing that Matthews still looked at his hazardous undertaking as steadily as ever, betraying no symptom of hesitation. The attentions which York paid to his intended wife, Fuegia, afforded much amusement to our party. He had long shewn himself attached to her, and had gradually become excessively jealous of her good-will. If any one spoke to her, he watched every word; if he was not sitting by her side, he grumbled sulkily; but if he was accidentally separated, and obliged to go in a different boat, his behaviour became sullen and morose. This evening he was quizzed so much about her that he became seriously angry, and I was obliged to interpose to prevent a quarrel between him and one of his steadiest friends.
On this and previous evenings, as we sat round the blazing piles, which our men seemed to think could never be large enough, we heard many long stories from Jemmy about the Oens, or Coin men, who live beyond the mountains at the north side of the Beagle Channel, and almost every year make desperate inroads upon the Tekeenica tribe, carrying off women and children, dogs, arrows, spears, and canoes; and killing the men whom they succeed in making prisoners. He told us that these Oens-men made their annual excursions at the time of ‘red leaf;’ that is in April or May, when the leaves of deciduous trees are changing colour and beginning to fall; just the time of year also when the mountains are least difficult to pass.
At that period these invaders sometimes come down to the shores of the Beagle Channel in parties of from fifty to a hundred; seize upon canoes belonging to the Yapoo division of the Tekeenica tribe, cross over to Navarin Island, and thence sometimes to others, driving the smaller and much inferior Tekeenica people before them in every direction. By Jemmy’s own account, however, there are hard battles sometimes, and the Oens tribe lose men; but as they always contrive to carry away their dead, it seems that the advantage of strength is on their side.
These periodical invasions of a tribe whose abode is in the north-eastern quarter of Tierra del Fuego are not to be confounded with the frequent disputes and skirmishes which take place between the two Tekeenica tribes; and it is interesting to compare what we thus heard with the account obtained by Oliver Van Noort in 1589: who learnt that the people lived in caves dug in the earth,[2] and that there were five tribes--four of ordinary stature and one of gigantic size. These giants, called Tiremenen, lived in ‘Coin.’ The other tribes were called Enoo, Kemenites, Karaike, and Kenneka.
23d. While embarking our tents and cooking utensils, several natives came running over the hills towards us, breathless with haste, perspiring violently, and bleeding at the nose. Startled at their appearance, we thought they had been fighting; but it appeared in a few moments, that having heard of our arrival, they lost not a moment in hurrying across the hills from a place near Woollȳa, and that the bloody noses which had surprised us were caused by the exertion of running. This effect has been noticed among the New Hollanders, I believe the islanders of the Pacific Ocean, as well as the Esquimaux, and probably others; but to our party it was then a novelty, and rather alarming.
Scarcely had we stowed the boats and embarked, before canoes began to appear in every direction, in each of which was a stentor hailing us at the top of his voice. Faint sounds of deep voices were heard in the distance, and around us echoes to the shouts of our nearer friends began to reverberate, and warned me to hasten away before our movements should become impeded by the number of canoes which I knew would soon throng around us. Although now among natives who seemed to be friendly, and to whom Jemmy and York contrived to explain the motives of our visit, it was still highly necessary to be on our guard. Of those men and boys who ran over the hills to us, all were of Jemmy’s tribe excepting one man, whom he called an Oens-man; but it was evident, from his own description, that the man belonged to the Yapoo, or eastern Tekeenica tribe, and was living in safety among his usual enemies, as a hostage for the security of a man belonging to Jemmy’s tribe who was staying among the eastern people.
As we steered out of the cove in which our boats had been sheltered, a striking scene opened: beyond a lake-like expanse of deep blue water, mountains rose abruptly to a great height, and on their icy summits the sun’s early rays glittered as if on a mirror. Immediately round us were mountainous eminences, and dark cliffy precipices which cast a very deep shadow over the still water beneath them. In the distant west, an opening appeared where no land could be seen; and to the south was a cheerful sunny woodland, sloping gradually down to the Murray Narrow, at that moment almost undistinguishable. As our boats became visible to the natives, who were eagerly paddling towards the cove from every direction, hoarse shouts arose, and, echoed about by the cliffs, seemed to be a continual cheer. In a very short time there were thirty or forty canoes in our train, each full of natives, each with a column of blue smoke rising from the fire amidships, and almost all the men in them shouting at the full power of their deep sonorous voices. As we pursued a winding course around the bases of high rocks or between islets covered with wood, continual additions were made to our attendants; and the day being very fine, without a breeze to ruffle the water, it was a scene which carried one’s thoughts to the South Sea Islands, but in Tierra del Fuego almost appeared like a dream. After a few hours (pulling hard to keep a-head of our train) we reached Woollȳa, and selected a clear space favourably situated for our encampment, landed, marked a boundary-line, placed sentries, and made the various arrangements necessary for receiving the anticipated visits of some hundred natives. We had time to do all this quietly, as our boats had distanced their pursuers several miles, while running from the Murray Narrow before a favourable breeze which sprung up, and, to our joy, filled every sail.
We were much pleased by the situation of Woollȳa, and Jemmy was very proud of the praises bestowed upon his land. Rising gently from the water-side, there are considerable spaces of clear pasture land, well watered by brooks, and backed by hills of moderate height, where we afterwards found woods of the finest timber trees in the country. Rich grass and some beautiful flowers, which none of us had ever seen, pleased us when we landed, and augured well for the growth of our garden seeds.
At our first approach, only a few natives appeared, who were not of Jemmy’s family. The women ran away and hid themselves, but Jemmy and York contrived (with difficulty) to make the men comprehend the reason of our visit; and their awkward explanation, helped by a few presents, gradually put them at ease. They soon understood our meaning when we pointed to the boundary-line which they were not to pass. This line was on the shore between our tents and the grass-land; immediately behind the tents was a good landing-place, always sheltered, where our boats were kept in readiness in case of any sudden necessity.
Soon after our arrangements were made, the canoes which had been following us began to arrive; but, much to my satisfaction, the natives landed in coves at some distance from us, where the women remained with the canoes while the men and boys came overland to our little camp. This was very favourable for us, because it divided their numbers and left our boats undisturbed. We had only to guard our front, instead of being obliged to look out all round, as I had expected; and really it would have been no trifling affair to watch the pilfering hands and feet of some hundred natives, while many of our own party (altogether only thirty in number) were occupied at a distance, cutting wood, digging ground for a garden, or making wigwams for Matthews, York, and Jemmy.
As the natives thronged to our boundary-line (a mere mark made with a spade on the ground), it was at first difficult to keep them back without using force; but by good temper on the part of our men, by distributing several presents, and by the broken Fuegian explanations of our dark-coloured shipmates, we succeeded in getting the natives squatted on their hams around the line, and obtaining influence enough over them to prevent their encroaching.
Canoes continued to arrive; their owners hauled them ashore on the beach, sent the women and children to old wigwams at a little distance, and hastened themselves to see the strangers. While I was engaged in watching the proceedings at our encampment, and poor Jemmy was getting out of temper at the quizzing he had to endure on account of his countrymen, whom he had extolled so highly until in sight, a deep voice was heard shouting from a canoe more than a mile distant: up started Jemmy from a bag full of nails and tools which he was distributing, leaving them to be scrambled for by those nearest, and, upon a repetition of the shout, exclaimed “My brother!” He then told me that it was his eldest brother’s voice, and perched himself on a large stone to watch the canoe, which approached slowly, being small and loaded with several people. When it arrived, instead of an eager meeting, there was a cautious circumspection which astonished us. Jemmy walked slowly to meet the party, consisting of his mother, two sisters, and four brothers. The old woman hardly looked at him before she hastened away to secure her canoe and hide her property, all she possessed--a basket containing tinder, fire-stone, paint, &c., and a bundle of fish. The girls ran off with her without even looking at Jemmy; and the brothers (a man and three boys) stood still, stared, walked up to Jemmy, and all round him, without uttering a word. Animals when they meet show far more animation and anxiety than was displayed at this meeting. Jemmy was evidently much mortified, and to add to his confusion and disappointment, as well as my own, he was unable to talk to his brothers, except by broken sentences, in which English predominated. After a few minutes had elapsed, his elder brother began to talk to him; but although Jemmy understood what was said, he could not reply. York and Fuegia were able to understand some words, but could not or did not choose to speak.
This first evening of our stay at Woollȳa was rather an anxious one; for although the natives seemed inclined to be quite friendly, and they all left us at sunset, according to their invariable practice, it was hard to say what mischief might not be planned by so numerous a party, fancying, as they probably would, that we were inferior to them in strength, because so few in number. Jemmy passed the evening with his mother and brothers, in their wigwam, but returned to us to sleep. York, also, and Fuegia were going about among the natives at their wigwams, and the good effect of their intercourse and explanations, such as they were, was visible next day (24th) in the confident, familiar manner of the throng which surrounded us while we began to dig ground for gardens, as well as cut wood for large wigwams, in which Matthews and his party were to be established. Canoes still arrived, but their owners seemed as well-disposed as the rest of the natives, many of whom assisted us in carrying wood, and bringing bundles of grass or rushes to thatch the wigwams which they saw we were making, in a pleasant sheltered spot, near a brook of excellent water. One wigwam was for Matthews, another for Jemmy, and a third for York and Fuegia. York told me that Jemmy’s brother was “very much friend,” that the country was “very good land,” and that he wished to stay with Jemmy and Matthews.
A small plot of ground was selected near the wigwams, and, during our stay, dug, planted and sowed with potatoes, carrots, turnips, beans, peas, lettuce, onions, leeks, and cabbages. Jemmy soon clothed his mother and brothers, by the assistance of his friends. For a garment which I sent the old woman she returned me a large quantity of fish, all she had to offer; and when she was dressed, Jemmy brought her to see me. His brothers speedily became rich in old clothes, nails and tools, and the eldest were soon known among the seamen as Tommy Button and Harry Button, but the younger ones usually staid at their wigwams, which were about a quarter of a mile distant. So quietly did affairs proceed, that the following day (25th) a few of our people went on the hills in search of guanacoes: many were seen, but they were too wild to approach. An old man arrived, who was said to be Jemmy’s uncle, his father’s brother; and many strangers came, who seemed to belong to the Yapoo Tekeenica tribe. Jemmy did not like their visit; he said they were bad people, ‘no friends.’
26th. While some of my party were washing in a stream, stripped to the waist, several natives collected round, and were much amused at the white skins, as well as at the act of washing, so new probably to them. One of them ran to the nearest wigwams, and a troop of curious gazers collected, whose hands, however, were soon so actively employed in abstracting the handkerchiefs, shoes, &c., which had been laid on the bank, that a stop was put to the ablutions.
We discovered that Jemmy’s eldest brother was a ‘doctor,’ and though young for his occupation of conjuring and pretending to cure illness, he was held in high estimation among his own tribe. I never could distinctly ascertain whether the eldest man, or the doctor of a tribe had the most influence; but from what little I could learn, it appeared to me that the elder of a family or tribe had a sort of executive authority, while the doctor gave advice, not only in domestic affairs, but with respect to most transactions. In all savage nations, I believe there is a person of this description--a pretended prophet--conjuror--and, to a certain degree,--doctor.
This evening our party were employed for a short time in firing at a mark, with the three-fold object of keeping our arms in order--exercising the men--and aweing, without frightening, the natives. While this was going on, the Fuegians sat about on their hams, watching our proceedings, and often eagerly talking to each other, as successful shots were made at the target, which was intentionally placed so that they could see the effect of the balls. At sunset they went away as usual, but looking very grave, and talking earnestly. About an hour after dark, the sentry saw something moving along the ground near our tents, within the boundary line, which he thought was a wild animal, and had just levelled his musket to fire at it, when he discovered it was a man, who instantly darted off, and was lost in the darkness. Some native had doubtless stolen to the tents, to see what we were doing; perhaps with a view to surprise us, if asleep, perhaps only to steal.
27th. While a few of our party were completing the thatch of the last wigwam, and others were digging in the garden which was made, I was much surprised to see that all the natives were preparing to depart; and very soon afterwards every canoe was set in motion,--not half a dozen natives remaining. Even Jemmy’s own family, his mother and brothers, left us; and as he could give no explanation of this sudden departure, I was in much doubt as to the cause. Whether an attack was meditated, and they were removing the women and children, previous to a general assembly of the men, or whether they had been frightened by our display on the preceding evening, and feared that we intended to attack them, I could not ascertain; but deeming the latter by far the most probable, I decided to take the opportunity of their departure to give Matthews his first trial of passing a night at the new wigwams.
Some among us thought that the natives intended to make a secret attack, on account of the great temptation our property offered; and in consequence of serious offence which had been taken by two or three old men, who tried to force themselves into our encampment, while I was at a little distance; one of whom, when resisted by the sentry, spit in his face; and went off in a violent passion, muttering to himself, and every now and then turning round to make faces and angry gestures at the man who had very quietly, though firmly, prevented his encroachment.
In consequence of this incident, and other symptoms of a disposition to try their strength, having more than three hundred men, while we were but thirty, I had thought it advisable, as I mentioned, to give them some idea of the weapons we had at command, if obliged to use them, by firing at a mark. Probably two-thirds of the natives around us at that time had never seen a gun fired, being strangers, coming from the Beagle Channel and its neighbourhood, where no vessel had been; and although our exercise might have frightened them more than I wished, so much, indeed, as to have induced them to leave the place, it is not improbable that, without some such demonstration, they might have obliged us to fire at them instead of the target. So many strangers had arrived during the few days we remained, I mean strangers to Jemmy’s family--men of the eastern tribe, which he called Yapoo--that his brothers and mother had no longer any influence over the majority, who cared for them as little as they did for us, and were intent only upon plunder. Finding this the case, I conclude that Jemmy’s friends thought it wise to retreat to a neighbouring island before any attack commenced; but why they did not tell Jemmy their reasons for going, I know not, neither could he tell me more than that they said they were going to fish, and would return at night. This, however, they did not do.
In the evening, Matthews and his party--Jemmy, York, and Fuegia--went to their abode in the three new wigwams. In that made for Matthews, Jemmy also took up his quarters at first: it was high and roomy for such a construction; the space overhead was divided by a floor of boards, brought from the ship, and there most of Matthews’ stores were placed; but the most valuable articles were deposited in a box, which was hid in the ground underneath the wigwam, where fire could not reach.
Matthews was steady, and as willing as ever; neither York nor Jemmy had the slightest doubt of their being all well treated; so trusting that Matthews, in his honest intention to do good, would obtain that assistance in which he confided, I decided to leave him for a few days. The absence of the natives, every one of whom had decamped at this time, gave a good opportunity for landing the larger tools belonging to Matthews and our Fuegians, and placing them within or beneath his wigwam, unseen by any one except ourselves; and at dusk, all that we could do for them being completed, we left the place and sailed some miles to the southward.
During the four days in which we had so many natives about us, of course some thefts were committed, but nothing of consequence was stolen. I saw one man talking to Jemmy Button, while another picked his pocket of a knife, and even the wary York lost something, but from Fuegia they did not take a single article; on the contrary, their kindness to her was remarkable, and among the women she was quite a pet.
Our people lost a few trifles, in consequence of their own carelessness. Had they themselves been left among gold and diamonds, would they all have refrained from indulging their acquisitive inclinations?
Notwithstanding the decision into which I had reasoned myself respecting the natives, I could not help being exceedingly anxious about Matthews, and early next morning our boats were again steered towards Woollȳa. My own anxiety was increased by hearing the remarks made from time to time by the rest of the party, some of whom thought we should not again see him alive; and it was with no slight joy that I caught sight of him, as my boat rounded a point of land, carrying a kettle to the fire near his wigwam. We landed and ascertained that nothing had occurred to damp his spirits, or in any way check his inclination to make a fair trial. Some natives had returned to the place, among them one of Jemmy’s brothers; but so far were they from showing the slightest ill-will, that nothing could be more friendly than their behaviour.
Jemmy told us that these people, who arrived at daylight that morning were his friends, that his own family would come in the course of the day, and that the ‘bad men,’ the strangers, were all gone away to their own country.
A further trial was now determined upon. The yawl, with one whale-boat, was sent back to the Beagle, and I set out on a westward excursion, accompanied by Messrs. Darwin and Hamond, in the other two boats: my intention being to complete the exploration of Whale-boat Sound, and the north-west arm of the Beagle Channel; then re-visit Woollȳa, either leave or remove Matthews, as might appear advisable, and repair to our ship in Goree Road. With a fair and fresh wind my boat and Mr. Hamond’s passed the Murray Narrow, and sailed far along the channel towards the west, favoured, unusually, by an easterly breeze. Just as we had landed, and set up our tent for the night, some canoes were seen approaching; so rather than be obliged to watch their movements all night, we at once embarked our tent and half-cooked supper, and pulled along the shore some miles further, knowing that they would not willingly follow us in the dark. About midnight we landed and slept undisturbed. Next day we made little progress, the wind having changed, and landed, earlier than usual, on the north side of the channel, at Shingle Point. Some natives soon appeared, and though few in number, were inclined to give trouble. It was evident they did not know the effect of fire-arms; for if a musket were pointed at them, and threatening gestures used, they only made faces at us, and mocked whatever we did. Finding them more and more insolent and troublesome, I preferred leaving them to risking a struggle, in which it might become necessary to fire, at the hazard of destroying life. Twelve armed men, therefore, gave way to six unarmed, naked savages, and went on to another cove, where these annoying, because ignorant natives could not see us.
On the 29th we reached Devil Island, and found the large wigwam still standing, which in 1830 my boat’s crew called the ‘Parliament House.’ Never, in any part of Tierra del Fuego, have I noticed the remains of a wigwam which seemed to have been burned or pulled down; probably there is some feeling on the subject, and in consequence the natives allow them to decay naturally, but never wilfully destroy them. We enjoyed a grand view of the lofty mountain, now called Darwin, with its immense glaciers extending far and wide. Whether this mountain is equal to Sarmiento in height, I am not certain, as the measurements obtained did not rest upon satisfactory data; but the result of those measures gave 6,800 feet for its elevation above the sea. This, as an abstract height, is small, but taking into consideration that it rises abruptly from the sea, which washes its base, and that only a short space intervenes between the salt water and the lofty frozen summit, the effect upon an observer’s eye is extremely grand, and equal, probably, to that of far higher mountains which are situated at a distance inland, and generally rise from an elevated district.
We stopped to cook and eat our hasty meal upon a low point of land, immediately in front of a noble precipice of solid ice; the cliffy face of a huge glacier, which seemed to cover the side of a mountain, and completely filled a valley several leagues in extent.
Wherever these enormous glaciers were seen, we remarked the most beautiful light blue or sea green tints in portions of the solid ice, caused by varied transmission, or reflection of light. Blue was the prevailing colour, and the contrast which its extremely delicate hue, with the dazzling white of other ice, afforded to the dark green foliage, the almost black precipices, and the deep, indigo blue water, was very remarkable.
Miniature icebergs surrounded us; fragments of the cliff, which from time to time fall into a deep and gloomy basin beneath the precipice, and are floated out into the channel by a slow tidal stream. In the first volume the frequent falling of these masses of ice is noticed by Captain King in the Strait of Magalhaens, and in the narrative of my first exploring visit to this arm of the Beagle Channel; therefore I will add no further remark upon the subject.
Our boats were hauled up out of the water upon the sandy point, and we were sitting round a fire about two hundred yards from them, when a thundering crash shook us--down came the whole front of the icy cliff--and the sea surged up in a vast heap of foam. Reverberating echoes sounded in every direction, from the lofty mountains which hemmed us in; but our whole attention was immediately called to great rolling waves which came so rapidly that there was scarcely time for the most active of our party to run and seize the boats before they were tossed along the beach like empty calabashes. By the exertions of those who grappled them or seized their ropes, they were hauled up again out of reach of a second and third roller; and indeed we had good reason to rejoice that they were just saved in time; for had not Mr. Darwin, and two or three of the men, run to them instantly, they would have been swept away from us irrecoverably. Wind and tide would soon have drifted them beyond the distance a man could swim; and then, what prizes they would have been for the Fuegians, even if we had escaped by possessing ourselves of canoes. At the extremity of the sandy point on which we stood, there were many large blocks of stone, which seemed to have been transported from the adjacent mountains, either upon masses of ice, or by the force of waves such as those which we witnessed. Had our boats struck those blocks, instead of soft sand, our dilemma would not have been much less than if they had been at once swept away.
Embarking, we proceeded along a narrow passage, more like a river than an arm of the sea, till the setting sun warned us to seek a resting-place for the night; when, selecting a beach very far from any glacier, we again hauled our boats on shore. Long after the sun had disappeared from our view, his setting rays shone so brightly upon the gilded icy sides of the summits above us, that twilight lasted an unusual time, and a fine clear evening enabled us to watch every varying tint till even the highest peak became like a dark shadow, whose outline only could be distinguished. No doubt such scenes are familiar to many, but to us, surrounded even as we so often were by their materials, they were rare; because clouds continually hang over the heights, or obscure the little sunshine which falls to the lot of Tierra del Fuego.
The following day (30th) we passed into a large expanse of water, which I named Darwin Sound--after my messmate, who so willingly encountered the discomfort and risk of a long cruise in a small loaded boat. Desirous of finding an opening northwards, I traced the northern shore of this sound, mile by mile, leaving all islands to the southward until we entered Whale-boat Sound, and I recognized Cape Desolation in the distance, as well as a number of minor points which had become familiar to me during the search after our lost boat in the former voyage (1830).
Feb. 2. Having done what was necessary and attainable for the purposes of the survey, we traversed Whale-boat Sound, and stopped for a time at an old bivouac, used by me twice before, on an islet near the east extremity of the largest Stewart Island. While the boat’s crew were occupied in preparing our meal, I went to Stewart Island, and from a small eminence saw Mount Sarmiento quite distinctly. We next steered eastward, along the north side of the Londonderry Islands, and passed the night in a narrow passage. On the 3d we got to the open sea at the south side of Darwin Sound, and entered the south-west arm of the Beagle Channel rather too late, for it had become so dark we could distinguish no place fit to receive us; however, after much scrutiny and anxious sounding, to ascertain if our boats could approach without danger of being stove, we were guided by the sound of a cascade to a sheltered cove, where the beach was smooth. Excepting for the novelty and excitement of exploring unknown places, however uninteresting they may be, there was little in this trip worthy of general notice, considering how much has already been said of these unprofitable regions. Even to a professed naturalist, there was scarcely anything to repay the time and trouble, as it was impossible to delay long enough in any one place to give time for more than a most cursory examination.
I need hardly say that the survey of such places as were visited in this hasty manner is little more than an eye-sketch, corrected by frequent bearings, occasional latitudes by sun, moon, or stars, and meridian distances, measured by two chronometers, which were always kept in a large box and treated very carefully. To have attempted more, to have hoped for such an accurate delineation of these shores, at present almost useless to civilized man, as is absolutely necessary where shipping may resort, would have been wrong, while so many other objects demanded immediate attention.
4th. We sailed along the passage very rapidly, a fresh wind and strong tide favouring us. The flood-tide stream set two or three knots an hour through this south-west arm of the Beagle Channel, but the ebb was scarcely noticed: certainly its strength did not, even in the narrowest places, exceed one knot an hour. A few Alikhoolip Fuegians were seen in a cove on the south shore, ten miles west of Point Divide; the only natives, except a very small party in Darwin Sound, that had been met in the excursion since we left the Tekeenica people.
Near Point Divide we saw a large fire, and approached the spot guardedly, supposing that a number of Fuegians must be there. No one appeared; but still the fire burned brightly, and we began to think there might be an ambush, or that the natives who had been there had fled, but were still in the neighbourhood. Approaching nearer, we found that the fire was in a large tree, whose trunk it had almost consumed. Judging from the slow rate at which the tree burned while we were present, I should say it had been on fire two or three days, and that the frequent heavy rain had prevented the flames from making head. Had the weather been some time dry, the adjoining woodland would have blazed, and, as the mountain side is steep and covered with trees, the conflagration would have been immense. At Point Divide the slate rock seemed to be of excellent quality, fit for roofing; but when will roofing slates be required in Tierra del Fuego? Perhaps though sooner than we suppose; for the accidental discovery of a valuable mine might effect great changes.
On the south shore, nearly opposite to Shingle Point, we met a large party of natives, among whom those who disturbed us at that place as we passed westward were recognized. All of them appeared in full dress, being bedaubed with red and white paint, and ornamented, after their fashion, with feathers and the down of geese. One of their women was noticed by several among us as being far from ill-looking: her features were regular, and, excepting a deficiency of hair on the eyebrow, and rather thick lips, the contour of her face was sufficiently good to have been mistaken for that of a handsome gipsy. What her figure might be, a loose linen garment, evidently one that had belonged to Fuegia Basket, prevented our noticing. The sight of this piece of linen, several bits of ribbon, and some scraps of red cloth, apparently quite recently obtained, made me feel very anxious about Matthews and his party: there was also an air of almost defiance among these people, which looked as if they knew that harm had been done, and that they were ready to stand on the defensive if any such attack as they expected were put into execution. Passing therefore hastily on, we went as far as the light admitted, and at daybreak next morning (6th) were again hastening towards Woollȳa. As we shot through the Murray Narrow several parties of natives were seen, who were ornamented with strips of tartan cloth or white linen, which we well knew were obtained from our poor friends. No questions were asked; we thought our progress slow, though wind and tide favoured us: but, hurrying on, at noon reached Woollȳa. Several canoes were on the beach, and as many natives seemed to be assembled as were there two days before we left the place. All were much painted, and ornamented with rags of English clothing, which we concluded to be the last remnants of our friends’ stock. Our boats touched the shore; the natives came hallooing and jumping about us, and then, to my extreme relief, Matthews appeared, dressed and looking as usual. After him came Jemmy and York, also dressed and looking well: Fuegia, they said, was in a wigwam.
Taking Matthews into my boat, we pushed out a short distance to be free from interruption, and remained till I had heard the principal parts of his story: the other boat took Jemmy on board, and York waited on the beach. Nearly all the Fuegians squatted down on their hams to watch our proceedings, reminding me of a pack of hounds waiting for a fox to be unearthed.
Matthews gave a bad account of the prospect which he saw before him, and told me, that he did not think himself safe among such a set of utter savages as he found them to be, notwithstanding Jemmy’s assurances to the contrary. No violence had been committed beyond holding down his head by force, as if in contempt of his strength; but he had been harshly threatened by several men, and from the signs used by them, he felt convinced they would take his life. During the last few days, his time had been altogether occupied in watching his property. At first there were only a few quiet natives about him, who were inoffensive; but three days after our departure several canoes full of strangers to Jemmy’s family arrived, and from that time Matthews had had no peace by day, and very little rest at night. Some of them were always on the look-out for an opportunity to snatch up and run off with some tool or article of clothing, and others spent the greater part of each day in his wigwam, asking for every thing they saw, and often threatening him when he refused to comply with their wishes. More than one man went out in a rage, and returned immediately with a large stone in his hand, making signs that he would kill Matthews if he did not give him what was demanded. Sometimes a party of them gathered round Matthews, and, if he had nothing to give them, teased him by pulling the hair of his face, pushing him about, and making mouths at him. His only partizans were the women; now and then he left Jemmy to guard the hut, and went to the natives’ wigwams, where the women always received him kindly, making room for him by their fire, and giving him a share of whatever food they had, without asking for any thing in return. The men never took the trouble of going with him on these visits (which, however, ceased when so many strangers arrived), their attention being engrossed by the tools, clothes, and crockery-ware at our shipmate’s quarters. Fortunately, the most valuable part of Matthews’ own things were underground, in a cave unsuspected by the natives, and other large tools were hidden overhead in the roof of his hut. York and Fuegia fared very well; they lost nothing; but Jemmy was sadly plundered, even by his own family. Our garden, upon which much labour had been bestowed, had been trampled over repeatedly, although Jemmy had done his best to explain its object and prevent people from walking there. When questioned about it, he looked very sorrowful, and, with a slow shake of the head, said, “My people very bad; great fool; know nothing at all; very great fool.” It was soon decided that Matthews should not remain. I considered that he had already undergone a severe trial, and ought not to be again exposed to such savages, however willing he might be to try them farther if I thought it right. The next difficulty was how to get Matthews’ chest and the remainder of his property safely into our boats, in the face of a hundred Fuegians, who would of course understand our object, and be much more than a match for us on land; but the less hesitation shown, the less time they would have to think of what we were about; so, dividing our party, and spreading about a little to create confidence--at a favourable moment the wigwam was quickly cleared, the cave emptied, and the contents safely placed in our boats. As I stood watching the proceedings, a few anxious moments passed, for any kind of skirmish would have been so detrimental to the three who were still to remain. When the last man was embarked, I distributed several useful articles, such as axes, saws, gimblets, knives and nails, among the natives, then bade Jemmy and York farewell, promising to see them again in a few days, and departed from the wondering throng assembled on the beach.
When fairly out of sight of Woollȳa, sailing with a fair wind towards the Beagle, Matthews must have felt almost like a man reprieved, excepting that he enjoyed the feelings always sure to reward those who try to do their duty, in addition to those excited by a sudden certainty of his life being out of jeopardy. We slept that night in a cove under Webley Head; sailed early the following morning (7th) along the north side of Nassau Bay, and about an hour after dark reached the Beagle--found all well, the surveying work about Goree Road done, the ship refitted, and quite ready for her next trip.
A day or two was required for observations and arrangements, after which (10th) we beat to windward across Nassau Bay, and on the 11th anchored in Scotchwell Bay. A rough night was passed under sail between Wollaston and Navarin Islands, in which we pretty well proved the clearness of that passage, as it blew fresh and we made a great many boards.
Next day I set out to examine the western part of Ponsonby Sound and re-visit Woollȳa. In my absence one party was to go westward, overland, to look at the outer coast between False Cape and Cape Weddell, and another was to examine and make a plan of the bay or harbour in which the Beagle lay. In 1830, Mr. Stokes had laid down its shores with accuracy on a small scale, but there was not then time to take many soundings; and as I conceived that Orange Bay and this harbour were likely to be useful ports, it was worth making a particular plan of each.
12th. With one boat I crossed Tekeenica Sound, and explored the western part of Ponsonby Sound. Natives were seen here and there, but we had little intercourse with them. Some curious effects of volcanic action were observed, besides masses of conglomerate, such as I had not noticed in any other part of Tierra del Fuego. On one islet I was placed in an awkward predicament for half an hour; it was a very steep, precipitous hill, which I had ascended by climbing or creeping through ravines and among trees; but, wishing to return to the boat’s crew, after taking a few angles and bearings from its summit, I could find no place by which it appeared possible to descend. The ravine up which I crawled was hidden by wood, and night was at hand. I went to and fro, like a dog on a wall, unable to descend, till one of the boat’s crew who was wandering about heard me call, and, ascending at the only accessible place, showed me where to plunge into the wood with a prospect of emerging again in a proper direction. This night we had dry beautiful weather, the leaves and sticks on the ground crackling under our feet as we walked, while at the ship, only sixty miles distant, rain poured down incessantly.
The night of the 13th was passed on Button Island. This also was quite fine, without a drop of rain, while at the ship, in Packsaddle Bay, it rained frequently. I mention these instances to show how different the climate may be even in places so near one another as Packsaddle Bay and Woollȳa.
14th. With considerable anxiety I crossed over from Button Island to Woollȳa. Several canoes were out fishing, women only being in them, who did not cease their occupation as we passed: this augured well; and in a few minutes after we saw Jemmy, York, and Fuegia, in their usual dress. But few natives were about them, and those few seemed quiet and well disposed. Jemmy complained that the people had stolen many of his things, but York and Fuegia had contrived to take better care of theirs. I went to their wigwams and found very little change. Fuegia looked clean and tidily dressed, and by her wigwam was a canoe, which York was building out of planks left for him by our party. The garden was uninjured, and some of the vegetables already sprouting.
Jemmy told us that strangers had been there, with whom he and his people had ‘very much jaw,’ that they fought, threw ‘great many stone,’ and stole two women (in exchange for whom Jemmy’s party stole one), but were obliged to retreat. Jemmy’s mother came down to the boat to see us; she was decently clothed, by her son’s care. He said that his brothers were all friendly, and that he should get on very well now that the ‘strange men’ were driven away. I advised Jemmy to take his mother and younger brother to his own wigwam, which he promised to do, and then, finding that they were all quite contented and apparently very happy, I left the place, with rather sanguine hopes of their effecting among their countrymen some change for the better. Jemmy’s occupation was hollowing out the trunk of a large tree, in order to make such a canoe as he had seen at Rio de Janeiro.
I hoped that through their means our motives in taking them to England would become understood and appreciated among their associates, and that a future visit might find them so favourably disposed towards us, that Matthews might then undertake, with a far better prospect of success, that enterprise which circumstances had obliged him to defer, though not to abandon altogether.
Having completed our work in Packsaddle Bay on the 18th, the Beagle went to the inlet originally called Windhond Bay, a deep place full of islets: thence, on the 19th, she moved to Gretton Bay, on the north side of Wollaston Island, and to Middle Cove. On the 20th, it was blowing a gale of wind from the south-west, but we pushed across before it to Goree Road, knowing that we should there find secure anchorage, and be unmolested by the furious williwaws which whirled over the high peaks of Wollaston Island.
We weighed from Goree Road on the 21st, and ran under close-reefed topsails to Good Success Bay, where our anchors were dropped in the evening. The night of the 22d was one of the most stormy I ever witnessed. Although close to a weather shore in a snug cove, upon good holding ground, with masts struck and yards braced as sharp as possible, the wind was so furious that both bowers were brought a-head with a cable on each, and the sheet anchor (having been let go early) had half a cable on it, the depth of water being only ten fathoms. During some of the blasts, our fore-yard bent so much that I watched it with anxiety, thinking it would be sprung. The storm being from the westward, threw no sea into the cove, but I several times expected to be driven out of our place of refuge, if not shelter. During part of the time we waited in Good Success Bay for an interval of tolerable weather, in which we might cross to the Falkland Islands without being molested by a gale, there was so much surf on the shore that our boats could not land, even while the wind was moderate in the bay.
While we were prisoners on board, some fish were caught, among which was a skate, four feet in length and three feet wide. Several fine cod-fish, of the same kind as those off Cape Fairweather, were also hooked, and much relished.
On the 26th we sailed, passed through a most disagreeable swell off Cape San Diego, and ran before a fresh gale towards the Falkland Islands. Towards evening we rounded to for soundings, but the sea was so high and short, that a man[3] at the jib-boom-end was pitched more than a fathom under water. He held on manfully, both to the boom and the lead-line, and as he rose above the wave, blowing and dripping, hove the lead forward as steadily as ever.[4] My own feelings at seeing him disappear may be imagined:--it was some time before we sounded again. This heavy though short sea seemed to be caused by the flood tide, coming from the southward, and meeting waves raised by strong north-west winds. The stream of tide set us a mile each hour north-eastward.
At eight the wind and sea were too much for us to run with; therefore, watching an opportunity, we rounded to[5] under close-reefed main-topsail, trysails, and fore-staysail. Next morning (27th) we bore up, though the sea was still heavy, and steered to pass south of the Falklands. Our observations at noon showed that since leaving Good Success Bay we had been set more than thirty miles to the north-east. This effect, whether caused by the flood tide-stream, or by a current independent of the tide, would be dangerous to ships endeavouring to pass westward of the Falklands during bad weather, and in all probability caused the embayment of H.M.S. Eden, Captain W. F. W. Owen, when she was saved by his skill: also of a French storeship, the Durance; and of several other vessels. At noon, on the 28th, we found that the current or stream of tide had set us more towards the east than to the northward, during the preceding twenty-four hours, while we were at the south side of the islands.
At daylight on the 1st of March (having passed the preceding night standing off and on under easy sail), we made Cape Pembroke, at the eastern extremity of the Falklands. The weather was very cold and raw, with frequent hail-squalls, although in the month corresponding to September of our hemisphere; and while working to windward into Berkeley Sound, the gusts of wind were sometimes strong enough to oblige us to shorten all sail. I did not then know of Port William--so close to us, and so easy of access.
The aspect of the Falklands rather surprised me: instead of a low, level, barren country, like Patagonia, or a high woody region, like Tierra del Fuego, we saw ridges of rocky hills, about a thousand feet in height, traversing extensive tracts of sombre-looking moorland, unenlivened by a tree. A black, low, and rocky coast, on which the surf raged violently, and the strong wind against which we were contending, did not tend to improve our first impressions of those unfortunate islands--scene of feud and assassination, and the cause of angry discussion among nations.
In a cove (called Johnson Harbour) at the north side of Berkeley Sound, was a wrecked ship, with her masts standing, and in other places were the remains of two more wrecks. We anchored near the beach on which Freycinet ran the Uranie, after she struck on a rock off Volunteer Point, at the entrance of Berkeley Sound; and from a French boat which came alongside learned that the Magellan, French whaler, had been driven from her anchors during the tremendous storm of January 12-13; that her crew were living on shore under tents, having saved every thing; that there were only a few colonists left at the almost ruined settlement of Port Louis; and that the British flag had been re-hoisted on the islands by H.M.S. Tyne and Clio.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] My coxswain.
[2] The ground within a wigwam is scooped out considerably.
[3] Nicholas White.
[4] Two men in the staysail netting were also dipped under water, at a second plunge, from which White escaped.
[5] The barometer was below 29 inches. See Meteorological Journal in Appendix.
XI. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS
The Falkland Islands, lying between the parallels of 51° and 53° S., and extending from near 57° almost to 62° W., are in number about two hundred, but only two are of considerable size. Between these latter, called East, and West Falkland, is the channel to which our countryman, Strong, gave the name of Falkland Sound, he himself calling the adjacent country Hawkins’ Land.
Plausible assertions have been made by parties anxious to disprove the claim of Great Britain to these islands, and so few persons, excepting those immediately concerned, have inclination to refer to original documents, that I may be pardoned for recalling to the recollection of those to whom the subject is still interesting, a few well-known facts, which, if fairly considered, place the question above dispute.
It has been asserted, that Americus Vespucius saw these islands in 1502,[1] but if the account of Americus himself is authentic,[2] he could not have explored farther south than the right bank of La Plata. In 1501-2 Americus Vespucius, then employed by the King of Portugal, sailed 600 leagues south and 150 leagues west from Cape San Agostinho (lat. 8° 20′ S.) along the coast of a country then named Terra Sancte Crucis.[3] His account of longitude may be very erroneous, but how could his latitude have erred thirteen degrees in this his southernmost voyage?
The south shore of the Plata is low, and appears to be woody, though it is not; the depth of water off it is moderate, and the currents are strong--all which peculiarities have been remarked on the northern coasts of the Falklands; therefore the ‘description’ alluded to by De Bougainville would apply equally well to the right bank of the Plata. The late Mr. Dalrymple published an extract from a chart printed at Rome, in 1508, in which it is said, that ships of Portugal discovered a continuation of land as far south as fifty degrees,[4] which did not there terminate. In that chart the name America is not to be found. Brazil is there called Terra[5] Sancte Crucis.
If the Portuguese or any other people actually traced or even discovered portions of coast south of the Plata before 1512, it appears strange that so remarkable an estuary, one hundred and twenty miles across, should have been overlooked; especially as soundings extend two hundred miles seaward of its entrance:--and that the world should have no clear record of its having been discovered prior to the voyage of Juan de Solis, in 1512. Vespucius has already robbed Columbus and his predecessor, Cabot, of the great honour of affixing their names to the New World--shall he also be tacitly permitted to claim even the trifling distinction of discovering the Falklands, when it is evident that he could not have seen them?[6]
On the 14th of August 1592, John Davis, who sailed with Cavendish on his second voyage, but separated from him in May 1592, discovered the islands now called Falkland. In Mr. John Jane’s relation of Davis’s voyage (Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 846), there is the following simple, but distinct account of this discovery: “Aug. 14, 1792. We were driven in among certain isles, never before discovered by any known relation, lying fifty leagues or better from the shore, east and northerly from the Strait” (of Magalhaens).
At this time Davis was striving to enter the Strait of Magalhaens, but had been long at sea, and driven far by tempests. His bearing is correct, though the distance (by estimation only) is too small.
In 1683-4, Dampier and Cowley saw three islands in lat. 51° to 51° 20′ S., which they (correctly) supposed to be those seen and named by Sebald de Weert. However, the editor of Cowley’s narrative, one William Hack, published a different latitude for the land they saw, and called it Pepys Island, in compliment to the then Secretary of the Admiralty, intending that it should be supposed a new discovery. The false latitude given by Hack was 47° S.: in his drawing of the island he did not omit the insertion of an Admiralty Bay and a Secretary Point.
Hawkins sailed along the northern shores of these islands in 1594, and he, ignorant of Davis’s discovery, named them Hawkins’s Maiden Land. His account appearing first, and prominently, before the public, procured for them the name by which they were known until Strong, in 1690, sailed through and anchored in the channel which he named Falkland Sound. The Welfare’s journal, written by Strong, is in the British Museum, together with Observations made during a South Sea Voyage, written by Richard Simson, who sailed in the same ship; but a few sentences in each are so relevant to the present subject, that I shall quote them verbatim:--“1690. Monday 27th January. We saw the land; when within three or four leagues, we had thirty-six fathoms. It is a large land, and lieth east and west nearest. There are several quays that lie among the shore. We sent our boat to one, and she brought on board abundance of penguins, and other fowls, and seals. We steered along shore E. by N., and at eight at night we saw the land run eastward as far as we could discern. Lat. 51° 3′ S.
“Tuesday 28th. This morning at four o’clock we saw a rock that lieth from the main island four or five leagues. It maketh like a sail.[7] At six, we stood into a sound that lies about twenty leagues from the westernmost land we had seen. The sound lieth south and north nearest. There is twenty-four fathoms depth at the entrance, which is four leagues wide. We came to an anchor six or seven leagues within, in fourteen fathoms water. Here are many good harbours. We found fresh water in plenty, and killed abundance of geese and ducks. As for wood, there is none.
“On the 31st we weighed from this harbour, with the wind at W.S.W. We sent our long-boat a-head of the ship, to sound before us. At eight o’clock in the evening, we anchored in nine fathoms. The next morning we weighed, and sent our boat before us. At ten, we were clear out of the sound. At twelve, we set the west cape bearing N.N.E., which we named Cape Farewell. This sound, Falkland Sound as I named it, is about seventeen leagues long; the first entrance lies S. by E., and afterwards S. by W.”
How it happened that the name Falkland, originally given to the sound alone, obliterated Hawkins, and has never yielded to Davis, is now a matter of very trifling importance.
I may be permitted to remark particularly, that Hawkins and Strong not only saw both East and West Falkland, but that in 1690 Strong anchored repeatedly between them, and landed: and I do so, because stress has been laid upon the fact of Beauchesne Goüin having anchored in 1700 on their eastern coast.
In the year 1600, the islands now called Jasons, Salvages, or Sebaldines, at the north-west extremity of the Falklands, were seen and named by Sebald de Weert; and during the next two centuries many other navigators, sailing to or from the Pacific, saw the Falklands; but it does not appear that any further landing was effected, or even that any vessel anchored there, after Beauchesne, except the Saint Louis, of St. Malo, until M. de Bougainville landed to form his settlement, in February 1764.
Several ships of St. Malo passed near the Eastern Falklands between the years 1706 and 1714, from whose accounts M. Frezier compiled his chart, published in 1717; and in compliment to the owners of one of them (the Saint Louis), her commander, M. Fouquet, named the cluster of islets near which he anchored, the Anican Isles.
In consequence of the visits of these ships of St. Malo, the French named the islands Les Malouines; but this was not till after 1716, when Frezier compiled the chart in which he called them ‘Isles Nouvelles,’ although in his own narrative (p. 512, Amsterdam edition, 1717), he says, “Ces îsles sont sans doute les mêmes que celles que le Chevalier Richard Hawkins découvrit en 1593.”
The Spaniards adopted the French name, slightly altered, by changing Malouines into Malvinas: even now the term ‘Maloon,’ a corruption of Malouine,[8] is sometimes used by English or Americans instead of island, in writing as well as in speaking.
During the early part of the last century, France maintained a lucrative commerce with Chile and Peru, by way of Cape Horn, and the advantages which might be derived from a port of refuge and supply at the eastern extremity of the Falklands did not escape her active discernment.
De Bougainville says, “Cependant leur position heureuse pour servir de relâche aux vaisseaux qui vont dans la mer du sud, et d’échelle pour la découverte des terres Australes, avoit frappé les navigateurs de toutes les nations. Au commencement de l’année 1763, la cour de France résolut de former un établissement dans ces îles. Je proposai au ministere de le commencer à mes frais, et secondé par MM. de Nerville et d’Arboulin, l’un mon cousin-germain et l’autre mon oncle, je fis sur le champ construire et armer à Saint Malo, par les soins de M. Duclos Guyot, aujourd’hui mon second, l’Aigle de vingt canons, et le Sphinx de douze, que je munis de tout ce qui étoit propre pour une pareille expédition. J’embarquai plusieurs familles Acadiennes, espèce d’hommes laborieuse, intelligente, et qui doit être chère à la France par l’inviolable attachement que lui out prouvé ces honnêtes et infortunés citoyens.
“A Monte Video nous prîmes beaucoup de chevaux, et de bêtes à corne,--nous atterrâmes sur les îles Sébaldes le 31 Janvier 1764.
“La même illusion qui avoit fait croire à Hawkins, à Woodes Rogers, et aux autres, que ces îles étoient couvertes de bois, agit aussi sur mes compagnons de voyage, et sur moi. Nous vîmes avec surprise, en débarquant, que ce que nous avions pris pour du bois en cinglant le long de la côte, n’étoit autre chose que des touffes de jonc fort élevées et fort rapprochées les unes des autres. Leur pied, en se desséchant reçoit la couleur d’herbe morte jusqu’à une toise environ de hauteur; et de là sort une touffe de joncs[9] d’un beau verd qui couronne ce pied; de sorte que, dans l’éloignement, les tiges réunies présentent l’aspect d’un bois de médiocre hauteur. Ces joncs ne croissent qu’au bord de la mer, et sur les petites îles; les montagnes de la grande terre sont, dans quelques endroits, couvertes entièrement de bruyères, qu’on prend aisément de loin pour du taillis.”--(Voyage autour du Monde, 1766-69, séconde édition, 1772, tom. i. p. 66-69.)
On the 17th of March De Bougainville decided to place his establishment on the spot where the present settlement stands, and forthwith disembarked to commence the laborious undertaking of founding a colony.
In the year 1764, a squadron was sent to the South Seas by George III., in whose instructions, dated June 17th, 1764, it is said, “And whereas his Majesty’s islands, called Pepys Island and Falkland Islands, lying within the said track,” (the track between the Cape of Good Hope and the Strait of Magalhaens), “notwithstanding their having been first discovered and visited by British navigators, have never yet been so sufficiently surveyed, as that an accurate judgment may be formed of their coasts and product, his Majesty, taking the premises into consideration, and conceiving no junction so proper for enterprises of this nature as a time of profound peace, which his kingdoms at present happily enjoy, has thought fit that it should now be undertaken.”
On the 23d January 1765, Commodore Byron went on shore at these islands, with the captains and principal officers of his squadron, “when the Union Jack being erected on a high staff, and spread, the commodore took possession of the harbour and all the neighbouring islands for his Majesty King George III., his heirs, and successors, by the name of Falkland Islands. When the colours were spread, a salute was fired from the ship.”
In consequence of Byron’s favourable report, Captain Macbride was sent out in H.M.S. Jason to begun their colonization. He arrived in January 1766.
Spain, hearing of the French settlement, immediately laid claim to the islands, as forming a part of her American possessions; and France, influenced by various considerations, agreed to deliver up to Spain her newly-formed colony, upon condition that the projectors and colonists should be indemnified for their losses: an agreement honourably fulfilled by Spain.
On the 1st of April 1767, De Bougainville gave up possession to the Spanish officer appointed to take charge: the standard of Spain was hoisted, and royal salutes fired by the vessels present. Some of the French colonists remained, but the greater part preferred returning to France, and passages were given to them on board Spanish ships.
In 1770, a Spanish armament attacked the British colony at Port Egmont, and obliged its small garrison to surrender to an overpowering force, and quit the place. England, indignant at the insult, armed for war, and demanded satisfaction from Spain for the injury inflicted. At first Spain argued and temporized; but finding that Great Britain continued firm, and that the English people were even more disposed for action than their Government, she relinquished her views--disavowed the act of her officer--and restored Port Egmont. England was satisfied--or rather, the court party professed to be satisfied; but the opposers of government angrily declared that Spain had not done enough; and that, though compelled to make restitution, her insult was unatoned for.
In 1774, finding the establishment at the Falklands expensive, and almost useless,[10] England quietly withdrew it; but the marks and signals of possession and property were left upon the islands, and when the governor departed, the British flag remained flying, and various formalities were observed, intended to indicate the right of possession, as well as to show that the occupation of them might be resumed.
The reports made by officers employed at Port Egmont were of such a discouraging tendency, that no person at that time entertained the least wish to have any further concern with the islands--and for years they were unnoticed--though not forgotten by England. Spain, however, jealous of interference with her colonial possessions, and regarding the Falklands as a vantage-ground, from which those in the south might be suddenly or secretly invaded, maintained a small garrison at the eastern extremity of the Archipelago, where her ships occasionally touched, and from time to time reconnoitred the adjacent, ports, in order to ascertain whether any visitors were there. At what precise time the Spaniards withdrew this small garrison, and left the Falkland archipelago uninhabited by man, I am not certain; but it must have been early in this century, because from 1810 to 1820 there was no person upon those islands who claimed even a shadow of authority over any of them.
In 1820, a ship of war was sent from Buenos Ayres to Port Louis; her captain, Jewitt, hoisted the Argentine flag, and saluted it with twenty-one guns; notifying, at the same time, to the sealing and whaling vessels present, that he was “commissioned by the Supreme Government of the United Provinces of South America to take possession of these islands in the name of the country to which they naturally appertain.”--(Weddell, p. 103.) This act of the Buenos Ayrean Government was scarcely known in Europe for many years; and not until 1829 was it noticed formally by Great Britain.
After reading this short statement of facts, one may pause to consider what nation is at this moment the legitimate owner of the Falklands. Do the discovery, prior occupation, and settlement of new and uninhabited countries give a right to possession? If so, Great Britain is the legal owner of those islands. Davis first discovered them; Hawkins first named them; Strong first landed on them; and (excepting the French), Byron first took formal possession of them; and (again excepting the French), Macbride first colonized them. Respecting the French claim, depending only upon first settlement, not discovering, naming, or landing; whatever validity any one may be disposed to allow it, that value must be destroyed, when it is remembered that Spain asserted her superior claim, and that France actually admitted it, resigning for ever her pretensions to those islands. Whatever France might have been induced to do for political reasons, of which the most apparent now is the continuance of the trade she then carried on with Chile and Peru, England never admitted that the Spanish claim was valid: and France having withdrawn, the question is solely between Spain and Great Britain. Spaniards neither discovered, landed upon, nor settled in the Falklands before Englishmen; and their only claim rests upon the unstable foundation of a papal bull, by virtue of which Spain might just as well claim Otaheite, the Sandwich Islands, or New Zealand.
As to the pretensions of Buenos Ayres, I shall only remark, that in a paper transmitted by her government to Mr. Baylies, chargé-d’affaires of the United States of North America, on the 14th August 1832, the advocate of her claims asserts, that “it is a political absurdity to pretend that a colony which emancipates itself, inherits the other territories which the metropolis may possess. If that singular doctrine were to be found in the code of nations, the Low Countries, for example, on their independence being acknowledged, in 1648, would have succeeded to Spain in her rights to America; and in the same manner, the United States would have appropriated to themselves the British possessions in the East-Indies. Inheritance, indeed! the United States did not inherit the rights of England in Newfoundland, notwithstanding its contiguity: and are they to inherit those which she may have to the Malvinas, at the southern extremity of the continent, and in the opposite hemisphere.”[11]
The writer of the preceding sentences, in his haste to attack the United States of America for an assertion made by one of their journalists, to the effect that the United States inherited from Great Britain a claim to fish around the Falklands, must have overlooked the simple fact, that his arguments were even more applicable to Buenos Ayres than they were to the United States of North America.
When Captain Jewitt arrived at the Falklands, he found more than thirty sail of vessels engaged there in the seal fishery, besides others which were recruiting the health of their crews after whaling or sealing voyages in the antarctic regions. By the crews of these ships numbers of cattle and pigs were killed, as well as horses, the wild descendants of those taken there by Bougainville and his successors.
In 1823, the Buenos Ayrean Government took another step, in the appointment of a ‘comandante de las Malvinas;’ and in the same year, Lewis Vernet, by birth a German, in concert with his friends at Buenos Ayres, “solicited and obtained from the Government the use of the fishery and of the cattle on the Eastern Malvina, and likewise tracts of land thereon, in order to provide for the subsistence of the settlement.[12] This undertaking did not prosper; but the next year Mr. Vernet prepared a second expedition, in which he himself sailed. His own words (translated) are:[13] “After many sacrifices, I was enabled to surmount great obstacles; but still that which we expected to effect in one year was not realized before the expiration of five. My partners lost all hope, and sold me their shares. I bought successively three vessels, and lost them; I chartered five, one of which was lost. Each blow produced dismay in the colonists, who several times resolved to leave that ungrateful region, but were restrained by their affection for me, which I had known how to win, and by the example of constancy and patience which my family and myself held out to them.”
In 1828, the Government of Buenos Ayres granted to Mr. Vernet (with certain exceptions) the right of property in the Falkland Islands--and in Staten Land! “It also conceded to the colony exemption from taxation for twenty years, and for the same period the exclusive right to the fishery in all the Malvinas, and on the coast of the continent to the southward of the Rio Negro, under the condition that within three years I (Vernet) should have established the colony.”[14]
About this time merchant-vessels of all nations visited the Falkland Islands, both in their outward voyage and when returning from the Pacific; but advantageous as their visits were, those of numerous sealers had a very different effect: for, instead of frequenting the settlement, their crews killed the seal indiscriminately at all seasons, and slaughtered great numbers of wild cattle. “For this reason,” says Vernet, “I requested the Government to furnish me with a vessel of war, to enable me to cause the rights of the colony to be respected. The Government was aware of the necessity of the measure; but not being then able to place a vessel at my disposal, it resolved to invest me with a public and official character, and for that purpose issued the two decrees of the 10th of June: the one re-establishing the governorship of the Malvinas and Tierra del Fuego; and the other nominating me to fulfil that office.”[15]
In 1829, Vernet warned off some North American sealers: and in 1831, upon their repeating the sealing excursion of which he had complained, he detained them by force. This act, and various circumstances arising out of it, drew upon him and his unfortunate colony the hasty indignation of Captain Silas Duncan, of the United States corvette Lexington, who, on his own responsibility, without waiting to communicate with his Government, sailed from the Plata to the Falkland Islands, surprised, assaulted, and made prisoners of many unoffending people, and unwarrantably destroyed both property and buildings. Mr. Brisbane and several others were put into confinement, and carried away, on board the Lexington, to Buenos Ayres, where they were delivered up to the Buenos Ayrean Government, in February 1832. The United States supported their officer, and immediately despatched a chargé-d’affaires to Buenos Ayres, with instructions to demand compensation for the injury done to North American trade, and full reparation to all North American citizens for personal wrongs.
While the United States and Buenos Ayres were discussing the questions at issue, Great Britain, following up the solemn warnings she had given Buenos Ayres (especially in the protest addressed to that Government by Mr. Parish, in November 1829), issued orders to her Commander-in-chief on the South American station, to send a vessel of war to re-hoist the British flag upon the Falkland Islands: to assert her right of sovereignty, and to cause every thing belonging to the Buenos Ayrean Government to be embarked and sent away.
On the 2d of January 1833, H.M.S. Clio anchored in Berkeley Sound, to carry these orders into effect: H.M.S. Tyne, about the same time, anchoring in Port Egmont. In each place the British colours were hoisted and saluted: the small Buenos Ayrean garrison at Port Louis quietly withdrew, and sailed for the Plata in an armed schooner, belonging to Buenos Ayres: and from that time those unhappy islands have been more ostensibly British, though but little has yet been done to draw forth the resources, and demonstrate the advantages which they unquestionably possess. When the Tyne and Clio sailed, after a very short stay at the islands, no authority was left there, but the colours were entrusted to an Irishman, who had been Mr. Vernet’s storekeeper.[16]
In 1834, a lieutenant in the navy, with a boat’s crew, was sent to reside at Port Louis, and since that time various small ships of war have succeeded each other in visiting and exploring the numerous islands and harbours of that archipelago.
Those who may wish for more historical information on this subject--for further details of former negociations between Spain and England, or of the late discussions between North America and Buenos Ayres--should refer to Dr. Johnson’s “Thoughts respecting the Falkland Islands” (Johnson’s Works, vol. viii. p. 96, Murphy’s Edition, 1816): to Junius’s 42d Letter; and to papers published at Buenos Ayres in 1832; in addition to general history.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Il me paroît qu’on en peut attribuer la première découverte au célèbre Améric Vespuce, qui, dans son troisième voyage pour la découverte de l’Amérique, en parcourut la côte du nord au mois d’Avril 1502. Il ignoroit à la vérité si elle appartenoit à une île, ou si elle faisoit partie du continent; mais il est facile de conclure de la route qu’il avoit suivie, de la latitude à laquelle il étoit arrivé, de la description même qu’il donne de cette côte, que c’étoit celle des Malouines. J’assurerais, avec non moins de fondement, que Beauchesne Goüin, revenant de la mer du Sud en 1700, a mouillé dans la partie orientale des Malouines, croyant être aux Sebaldes.--Voyage de Bougainville, 2d édit. 1772, tom. i. p. 63.
[2] Letters of Americus Vespucius, in Ramusio’s Collection, vol. i. fol. 128.
[3] The name America was not given before the year 1507. (Herrera, Dec. 1, 7, 5.)
[4] The Falklands are beyond fifty-one degrees of south latitude.
[5] In 1507 (the admiral Christopher Columbus being dead), Americus Vespucius was taken into the service of the King of Spain, with the title of ‘Pilote mayor,’ and was employed in making charts of the new discoveries, which gave him an opportunity to affix his own name to the land of South America. (Herrera, Dec. 1, 7, 5.)
[6] Could the constructor of the chart, published at Rome in 1508, have been misinformed, owing to a mistake of 5 for 3 (50 for 30)? Such errors occur frequently in modern compilations.
[7] This rock was seen by Hawkins, and named by him ‘White Conduit.’ Now it is called Eddystone.
[8] “Fortunately, it is on this maloon, or island, that bullocks and horses are found running wild.”--(Weddell, p. 97.)
[9] Now called Tussac by the sealers and colonists.
[10] The fact was, it was injudiciously situated, and therefore seldom visited, except by a few fishermen.
[11] Papers relative to the origin and present state of the questions pending with the United States of America on the subject of the Malvinas (Falkland Islands). Translated and printed at Buenos Ayres in 1832.
[12] See note in preceding page.
[13] Idem.
[14] Idem.
[15] See note, page 235.
[16] Not long before the Clio arrived, there had been a mutiny in the garrison, and the Buenos Ayrean commanding officer had been barbarously murdered. In the early part of 1834, Mr. Brisbane fell a victim to treachery. These fatal occurrences will be mentioned again in the course of my narrative.
Chapter XII
First Appearance of Falklands--Tides--Currents--Winds--Seasons --Temperature--Rain--Health--Dangers--Cautions--View--Settlement --Animals--Foxes--Varieties--Seal--Whales--Fish and Fishery--Birds --Brushwood--Peat--Pasture--Potash--Orchilla--Grazing--Corn--Fruit --Vegetables--Trees--Plants--Land--Situation of principal Settlement--Prospective advantages--Suggestions--Vernet’s Establishment--Reflections.
In the appearance of the Falkland Islands, there is very little either remarkable or interesting. About the greater part of the archipelago, barren hills, sloping towards low and broken ground, or rocky surf-beat shores, are the only objects which meet the eye. On the West Falkland, and some small islands near it, there are high precipitous cliffs in a few parts exposed to the western seas; but other places, and especially the southern portions of East Falkland, are so low that they cannot be seen from the deck of a vessel five miles distant. The average height of the western island is greater than that of the eastern, although the highest hills seem to be in the latter, where they rise to about thirteen hundred feet above the sea level.
Around the islands, especially toward the south-eastern and north-western extremes, there are numerous islets and rocks, whose distance from shores, where tides run strongly and winds are violent as well as sudden, makes them exceedingly dangerous: more particularly near the north-west extremity of the group: and as seamen require information on these matters before entering a port, I will notice the tides, winds, and climate previous to other subjects.
The tides differ much as to strength and direction in different parts of the archipelago, but the times of syzygial high water only vary from five to eight o’clock; and the rise of tide is almost similar every where, about four feet at neap, and eight feet at spring tides. The principal swell of the ocean, which causes the tidal streams about these islands, comes from the south-east. Scarcely any stream is perceptible on the south-east coast of East Falkland; but along the north, south, and west shores it increases in strength, until among the Jason Islands it runs six miles an hour, causing heavy and dangerous races. Off Berkeley Sound, across the entrance, and near Cape Carysfort, the tide runs about two knots, at its greatest strength; and thence westward it increases gradually. Into Falkland Sound the tide flows from both openings, and meets near the Swan Islands; shewing, I apprehend, that the principal wave or swell impinges upon the coast considerably eastward of south.
The tidal currents are stronger along the northern shores of the archipelago than they are along the south coasts; and the stream of flood is stronger than the ebb. At Port William, the easternmost harbour, the time of high water at full moon is five; and thence westward, the times increase gradually to half-past eight, at New Island, which is nearly the westernmost of the group.
Generally speaking, the sea is much deeper near the southern and western shores than it is near those of the north; and to those local differences I attribute the varying velocity of the minor tide-streams.
Besides these movements of the surrounding waters, there is a current setting past the islands from south-west to north-east: a current which continually brings drift-wood to their southern coasts, and has brought Fuegian canoes. On all parts of the southern shores that are open to the south-west, the beaches or rocks are covered with trees, which have drifted from Staten Land or Tierra del Fuego. Great quantities of this driftwood may be found between Cape Orford and Cape Meredith; upon the Arch, Speedwell, George, and Barren Islands: indeed, there are few places between Cape Orford and Choiseul Bay where a vessel may not find a good supply of fuel. On Long Island, and in the bay behind the Sea-Lion Islands, portions of Fuegian canoes have often been found; one consisted of an entire side (pieces of bark sewed together), which could not have been made many years. At sea, when north-eastward of the Falklands, great quantities of drift kelp[1] are seen, besides water-worn trunks and branches of trees, near which there are generally fish, and numbers of birds. These sure indications of a current from the south-west have been met with upwards of two hundred miles to the northward of Berkeley Sound. There is not, however, reason to think that this current ever runs more than two knots an hour, under any circumstances, and in all probability its usual set is even less than one knot.
Wind is the principal evil at the Falklands: a region more exposed to storms, both in summer and winter, it would be difficult to mention.
The winds are variable; seldom at rest, while the sun is above the horizon, and very violent at times; during the summer a calm day is an extraordinary event. Generally speaking, the nights are less windy than the days, but neither by night nor by day, nor at any season of the year, are these islands exempt from sudden and very severe squalls; or from gales which blow heavily, though they do not usually last many hours.
It has been stated by Bougainville and others that in summer the wind generally freshens as the sun rises, and dies away about sunset: also, that the nights are clear and starlight. The information I have received, with what I have myself witnessed, induces me to agree to the first of these statements in its most general sense, and to a certain degree I can admit the second; but, at the same time, it is true that there are many cloudy and very many windy nights in the course of each year, I might almost say month. The Magellan was driven from her anchors, though close to a weather shore in the narrowest part of Berkeley Sound, and totally wrecked in Johnson Harbour about midnight of the 12th of January[2] 1833.
The prevalent direction of the wind is westerly. Gales, in general, commence in the north-west, and draw or fly round to the south-west; and it may be remarked, that when rain accompanies a north-west wind it soon shifts into the south-west quarter, and blows hard.
Northerly winds bring cloudy weather; and when very light, they are often accompanied by a thick fog: it is also worth notice that they almost always occur about the full and change of the moon.
North-east and northerly winds bring gloomy overcast weather, with much rain: sometimes they blow hard and hang in the N.N.E., but it is more common for them to draw round to the westward. South-easterly winds also bring much rain, they are not frequent, but they blow hard, and as the gale increases it hauls southward. During winter the winds are chiefly from the north-west, and in summer they are more frequently south-west. Though fogs occur with light easterly or northerly winds, they do not often last through the day.
Gales of wind, as well as squalls, are more sudden, and blow more furiously from the southern quarter, between south-west and south-east, than from other directions.
Wind from the east is rarely lasting, or strong; it generally brings fine weather, and may be expected in April, May, June, and July, rather than at other times, but intervals of fine weather (short indeed), with light breezes from E.S.E. to E.N.E., occur occasionally throughout the year.
Neither lightning nor thunder are at all common, but when the former occurs easterly wind is expected to follow. If lightning should be seen in the south-east while the barometer is low,[3] a hard gale from that quarter may be expected. South-east and southerly gales last longer than those from the westward, and they throw a very heavy sea upon the southern shores. In the winter there is not, generally, so much wind as in the summer, and in the former season the weather, though colder, is more settled, and considerably drier.
In different years seasons vary so much, that those who have been longest about the islands hardly venture to predict what weather will be found during any particular month. All they say is, that January, February, and March, though warmest, are the windiest months, and that May, June, and July, though cold, are much less stormy.[4]
I must here add one word in favour of the barometer, or sympiesometer. Every material change in the weather is foretold by these invaluable instruments, if their movements are tolerably understood by those who consult them, and if they are frequently observed. Mr. Low said to me, “The barometer is worth any thing in these countries” (alluding to Tierra del Fuego, as well as the Falklands); “some say they dislike it because it is always so low, and foretelling bad weather; but how often do we have any other?” They must, somehow, think the barometer ominous, and overlook the use of the omen.
The temperature may be considered equable; it is never hot, neither is it ever very cold: but the average is low, and in consequence of frequent rain and wind, a really moderate degree of cold is much more noticed than would probably be the case if the weather were dry and serene.
Since 1825 Fahrenheit’s thermometer has only once been observed so low as 22° in the shade, at mid-day, and it has been but once above 80° in the shade. Its ordinary range is between 30° and 50° in the winter, and from 40° to 65° in the summer. Ice has not been known to exceed an inch in thickness; snow seldom lies upon the low lands, or at any period exceeds two inches in depth. Although rain is so frequent, it does not continue falling for any considerable time; and as evaporation is rapid, in consequence of so much wind, there are no unwholesome exhalations; indeed, the climate is exceedingly healthy, and no disease whatever has been hitherto contracted, in consequence of its influence, excepting ordinary colds and coughs, or rheumatic affections, brought on by unusual exposure to weather. It is said by those who have had the most experience there, that the climate of West Falkland is milder than that of the Eastern large island. Probably the west winds are chilled in passing over the heights, and upon reaching Port Louis are several degrees colder than when they first strike upon the western islands. In Tierra del Fuego, and many other places, the case is similar, the western regions having a milder climate than is found about the central or eastern districts. Excellent harbours, easy of access, affording good shelter, with the very best holding ground, abound among these islands, and, with due care, offer ample protection from the frequent gales.
In approaching the land, and especially while entering a harbour, a careful look-out should be kept for ‘fixed kelp,’ the sea-weed growing on every rock in those places, which is covered by the sea, and not very far beneath its surface. Lying upon the water, the upper leaves and stalks show, almost as well as a buoy, where there is a possibility of hidden danger. Long stems, with leaves, lying regularly along the surface of the sea, are generally attached to rocky places, or else to large stones. Occasionally a few straggling stalks of kelp are seen in deep water, even in thirty fathoms: many of which are attached to stones, and so firmly, that their long stems will sometimes weigh the stone adhering to their roots. Such scattered plants as these need not be minded by a ship; but in passing to windward of patches or beds of kelp, or rather in passing on that side from which the stems stream away with the current, care should be taken to give the place a wide berth, because the only part which shows, when the tide is strong, lies on one side of, not over the rocks. Where the stream of tide is very strong this kelp is quite ‘run under,’ or kept down out of sight, and can no longer be depended on as a warning. When a clear spot is seen in the middle of a thick patch of fixed kelp, one may expect to find there the least water.
Drift kelp, or that which is floating on the surface of the sea, unattached to any rock or stone, of course need not be avoided: it may be known at a glance, by the irregular huddled look which it has. Off the south-east shores of the Falklands there are several rocky shallows, on which the sea breaks heavily during south-east gales, though not at other times: all those shallows are marked by kelp, and in one place, thus indicated, not more suspicious in appearance than others, a rock was found, almost ‘a-wash’ at low water.
Many wrecks have occurred, even on the land-locked shores of harbours themselves, and in 1833-4, some of their remains served as a warning to strangers to moor their ships securely: but with good ground tackle, properly disposed, and the usual precautions, a vessel will lie in absolute safety, as the holding-ground is excellent: indeed, in many places so tenacious, that it is exceedingly difficult to weigh an anchor which has been some time down. Particular directions for making the land, approaching and entering harbours, and taking advantageous berths, will be found in another place: generally speaking, the local pilotage is very simple.
The country is remarkably easy of access to persons on foot; but half-concealed rivulets and numerous bogs, oblige a mounted traveller to be very cautious. There are no trees any where, but a small bush is plentiful in many vallies. Scarcely any view can be more dismal than that from the heights: moorland and black bog extend as far as eye can discern, intersected by innumerable streams, and pools of yellowish brown water. But this appearance is deceptive: much of what seems to be a barren moor, is solid sandy clay soil, covered by a thin layer of vegetable mould, on which grow shrubby bushes and a coarse grass, affording ample nourishment to cattle; besides which, one does not see into many of the vallies where there is good soil and pasture. Some tracts of land, especially those at the south of East Falkland, differ in character, being low, level, and abundantly productive of excellent herbage.
Mr. Darwin’s volume will doubtless afford information as to the geological formation of the Eastern Falkland. He did not visit the western island, but obtained many notices of it from those who were there. The more elevated parts of East Falkland are quartz rock; clay-slate prevails in the intermediate districts. Sandstone, in which are beautifully perfect impressions of shells, occurs in beds within the slate formation: and upon the slate is a layer of clay, fit for making bricks. Near the surface, where this clay is of a lighter quality, and mixed with vegetable remains, it is good soil, fit for cultivation. In some places, a great extent of clay is covered by a layer of very solid peat, varying in depth from two to ten feet. The solidity of this peat is surprising; it burns well, and is an excellent substitute for other fuel. To the clay and to the solid peat may be attributed the numerous bogs and pools of water, rather than to the total amount of rain. Is the peat now growing, or was the whole mass formed ages ago?
The settlement, now consisting only of a few huts, some cottages, and a ruinous house or two, occupies the place originally selected by Bougainville, close to Port Louis, at the head of Berkeley Sound. Standing in an exposed situation, scattered over half a mile of rising ground, without a tree or even a shrub near it, the unfortunate village has a bleak and desolate appearance, ominous of its sad history. Previous, however, to entering upon the affairs of the settlement, I will continue my sketch of the islands and their present produce, independent of the settlers now there.
By the French, and afterwards by the Spanish colonists, a number of black cattle, horses, pigs, and rabbits, were turned loose upon East Falkland; and, by considerate persons, engaged in whale or seal-fishery, both goats and pigs have been left upon smaller islands near West Falkland. These animals have multiplied exceedingly; and, although they have been killed indiscriminately by the crews of vessels, as well as by the settlers, there are still many thousand head of cattle, and some thousand horses, besides droves of pigs, perfectly wild, upon the eastern large island: while upon Carcass Island, Saunders Island, and others, there are numbers of goats and pigs. In 1834, the smallest estimate exceeded twelve thousand cattle, and four thousand horses; but there were no means of ascertaining their number, except by comparing the accounts of the gaucho colonists, who were accustomed to pursue them, not only for ordinary food or for their hides, but even for their tongues alone, not taking the trouble to carry off more of the animal so wantonly slaughtered.[5] The wild cattle are very large and very fat, and the bulls are really formidable animals, perhaps among the largest and most savage of their race. At Buenos Ayres, the ordinary weight of a bull’s hide is less than fifty pounds, but the weight of such hides in the East Falkland has exceeded eighty pounds. The horses look well while galloping about wild, but the gauchos say they are not of a good breed, and will not bear the fatigue of an ordinary day’s work, such as a horse at Buenos Ayres will go through without difficulty. Perhaps their ‘softness,’ as it is there called, may be owing to the food they get, as well as to the breed. The wild pigs on East Falkland are of a long-legged, ugly kind: but some of those on Saunders Island and other places about West Falkland are derived from short-legged Chinese pigs. The only quadruped apparently indigenous is a large fox, and as about this animal there has been much discussion among naturalists, and the specimens now in the British Museum were deposited there by me, I am induced to make a few remarks upon it.
It has been said, that there are two varieties of this ‘wolf-fox,’ as it has been called,[6] one being rather the smaller, and of a redder brown; but the fact is, that no other difference exists between the two apparent varieties, and as the darker coloured larger animal is found on the East Falkland, while the other is confined to the western island, the darker colour and rather thicker furry coat may be attributed to the influence of a somewhat colder climate. The fox of West Falkland approaches nearer the large fox of Patagonia, both in colour and size, than its companion of East Falkland does; but allowing that there is one shade of difference between the foxes of East and West Falkland, there are but two, or at most three shades between the animal of West Falkland and the large fox of Port Famine. In Strong’s voyage (1690), Simson describes these foxes as being twice as large as an English fox, but he does not say upon which island.[7]
All who have seen these animals alive have been struck by their eager ferocity and disregard of man’s power. Byron says, “Four creatures of great fierceness, resembling wolves, ran up to their bellies in the water to attack the boat!” also, “When any of these creatures got sight of our people, though at ever so great a distance, they ran directly at them.”--“They were always called wolves by the ship’s company; but except in their size and the shape of the tail, I think they bore a greater resemblance to a fox. They are as big as a middle-sized mastiff, and their fangs are remarkably long and sharp.” “They burrow in the ground, like a fox.” The Beagle’s officers, when employed in surveying the Falklands, were often annoyed, as well as amused, by the intrusion of these fearless animals. In size, the larger ones are about twice as bulky as an English fox, and they stand nearly twice as high upon their legs.[8] Their heads are coarser, and their fur is not only thicker as well as longer, but it is of a woolly nature.
Referring again to a resemblance between the Falkland and Patagonian foxes, I may remark, that there is as much difference in size, in coat, and in tail, between the guanaco of Port Desire and that of Navarin Island (near Cape Horn), as there is between the fox of West Falkland and that of Port Famine. What the Patagonian animal is which the Blanco Bay people called ‘wolf,’[9] or to which Pigafetta alluded in his vocabulary of words used by the Patagonians at Port San Julian, as equivalent to ‘ani,’[10] I cannot say: I was inclined to suspect an equivoque arising out of the word ‘lobo,’ which means seal as well as wolf; but Lieut. Wickham says he saw a wolf near the Colorado River.[11] The Falkland foxes feed upon birds, rabbits, rats and mice, eggs, seals, &c., and to their habits of attacking king-penguins, if not seal, while alive, I presume that a part of their unhesitating approach to man may be traced.
Naturalists say that these foxes are peculiar to this archipelago, and they find difficulty in accounting for their presence in that quarter only.[12] That they are now peculiar cannot be doubted; but how long they have been so is a very different question. As I know that three hairy sheep, brought to England from Sierra Leone in Africa, became woolly in a few years, and that woolly sheep soon become hairy in a hot country (besides that their outward form alters considerably after a few generations); and as I have both seen and heard of wild cats, known to have been born in a domestic state, whose size surpassed that of their parents so much as to be remarkable; whose coats had become long and rough; and whose physiognomies were quite different from those of their race who were still domestic; I can see nothing extraordinary in foxes carried from Tierra del Fuego to Falkland Island becoming longer-legged, more bulky, and differently coated. But how were they carried there? In this manner:--In page 242, the current was mentioned which always sets from Staten Land towards the southern shores of the Falklands--icebergs or trees drifted by that current and westerly winds afford the means of transport; and I appeal to the quotations already made from Forster’s and Bougainville’s works for proof that animals may be so carried.
Because we do not know that there are foxes at this time upon Staten Land, it does not follow that there are none, or that they have never been there; and as guanacoes, pumas, and foxes are now found on Eastern Tierra del Fuego, why might not foxes have been carried to Staten Land and thence to the Falklands, or, which is still more probable, drifted from Eastern Tierra del Fuego direct. I have heard somewhere, though I cannot recollect the authority, that a man in North America hauled a large old tree to the bank of a river in which it was floating towards the sea, and proceeded to secure it on the bank, when to his astonishment, out of a hole in the tree jumped a fine fox. Clusters of trees are often found floating, which have fallen off a cliff, or have been carried out of a river; and once in the ocean, they are drifted along partly by currents and partly by wind acting upon their branches or exposed surfaces.
Rats and mice were probably taken to the Falklands by the earlier navigators who landed there, whose ships were often plagued with their numbers.[13] That they have varied from the original stock in sharpness of nose, length of tail, colour, or size, is to be expected, because we find that every animal varies more or less in outward form and appearance, in consequence of altered climate, food, or habits; and that when a certain change, whatever it may be, is once effected, the race no longer varies while under similar circumstances; but to fancy that every kind of mouse which differs externally from the mouse of another country is a distinct species, is to me as difficult to believe as that every variety of dog and every variety of the human race constitute a distinct species. I think that naturalists who assert the contrary are bound to examine the comparative anatomy of all these varieties more fully, and to tell us how far they differ. My own opinion is, judging from what I have gathered on the subject from various sources, that their anatomical arrangement is as uniformly similar as that of the dogs and of the varieties of man.
On East Falkland there are numbers of rabbits, whose stock is derived from those carried there by Bougainville or the Spaniards. Among them were some black ones (when I was there), which had been pronounced indigenous, or, at all events, not brought from Europe. A specimen of these pseudo-indigenous animals has been carefully examined by those to whom a new species is a treasure, but it turns out to be a common rabbit.
Sea-elephant and seal (both hair and fur-seal) were abundant along the shores of the archipelago in former years, and by management they might soon be encouraged to frequent them again;[14] but now they are annually becoming scarcer, and if means are not taken to prevent indiscriminate slaughter, at any time of year, one of the most profitable sources of revenue at the Falklands will be destroyed.
Whales frequent the surrounding waters at particular seasons, and they are still to be found along the coasts of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego (within easy reach from the Falklands), though their numbers are very much diminished by the annual attacks of so many whale-ships, both large and small, which have made the Falklands their head-quarters during the last twenty years.
A valuable source of daily supply, and by salting, of foreign export, is the inexhaustible quantity of fish which swarm in every harbour during the summer. The description which most abounds is a kind of bass, from two to three feet long, and six inches in depth: it takes salt well, and has been exported by cargoes to the river Plata[15] and to Rio de Janeiro; and there are delicious small fish in such shoals, that our boats’ crews were sometimes obliged to let a large portion escape from the net before they could haul it ashore without tearing.[16]
Mr. Vernet said, “We have a great abundance of fish in all the bays, where they come at the beginning of spring to spawn. In the winter season they retire. They enter regularly twice in the twenty-four hours, at about half-flood. They are caught in such numbers, that ten or twelve men salted about sixty tons in less than a month. Generally, they are caught with a net, but they will also take the hook; they are of a species between the mullet and the salmon, and become very fat towards the end of the summer. They are very good eating, and when salted, some prefer them to the cod-fish.”--Vernet, MS. 1831. In the fresh-water ponds, so numerous on the large islands, there is a very delicate fish, somewhat resembling a trout, which may be caught by angling. The shell-fish are chiefly muscles and clams, both of which are very abundant, and easily gathered at low water.
It may here be remarked that the cod-fishery off Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego might be turned to very good account by settlers at the Falklands.
Of the feathered tribe there are numbers, but not much variety has been found--a natural consequence of the absence of trees. Three or four kinds of geese,[17] two kinds of snipe, several varieties of the duck, occasionally wild swans of two kinds, a sort of quail (like that of Tierra del Fuego), carrion-hawks or vultures, albatrosses, gulls, petrel, penguins, sea-hens, shags, rooks, curlew, sandpipers, rock-hoppers, and a very few land-birds, are found about most of the islands.[18]
Although there are no trees, a useful kind of brushwood grows abundantly in vallies, to the height of three or four feet, and thickly set together. Over level plains it is but thinly scattered. The settlers use this brushwood for lighting their peat-fires. There are three kinds of bushes: one grows straight, from two to five feet high, with a stem from half an inch to an inch and half in diameter: this kind is found abundantly in most of the vallies. Another is common about the southern parts of the islands, and has a crooked trunk, as thick as a man’s arm, growing to about three feet in height. The third is smaller still, being little better than heather; it grows almost every where, though scantily.
Peat is inexhaustible; and, if properly managed, answers every common purpose of fuel, not only as a substitute, but pleasantly.[19] It will not, however, in its natural state, answer for a forge; but if dried and subjected to heavy pressure for some time before use, a much greater heat might be derived from it.
There is but little difference in the quality of the grass, either on high or low land; but in sheltered valleys it is longer, softer, and greener, than elsewhere. The whole face of the country is covered with it; and in some places, especially over a peaty soil, its growth becomes hard and rank. In the southern half of East Falkland, where, as I mentioned, the soil is good, there is abundance of long, but brownish grass over all the country, and at the roots of it there are sweet tender shoots, sheltered from the wind, much liked by cattle. In that district there are several varieties of grass growing on fine dark-coloured earth, mixed with light white sand; and, although, from never being cut, it has a rugged and brown appearance, its nutritive properties must be considerable, as the finest cattle are found feeding there. Mr. Bynoe remarked to me, that wherever the surface of the ground had been broken by cattle, he found a very dark-coloured earth mixed with sand or clay, or else clay mixed with gravel and sand. That the clay is good for bricks has been mentioned; but I have not said that there is stone of two or three kinds suitable for building, and that any quantity of lime may be obtained by burning fossil shells brought from the coast of Patagonia, where the cliffs are full of them, or by collecting the shells scattered upon the Falkland shores. Another natural production, of more value than it has hitherto been considered, is the common sea-weed or kelp;[20] and I am told by Sir Woodbine Parish that the archil or orchilla weed was obtained there by the Spaniards.
It is to be remarked, that the soil of East Falkland has been very much improved in the neighbourhood of the settlement, as well as around the estancia, or farm, where the tame cattle are kept, in consequence of the treading and manuring it has received. The grass is there as short and as sweet as horses could desire; and does not this show, that by folding, on a large scale, any extent of pasture land might, by degrees, be brought to a similar condition? Why sheep have not been carried there in greater numbers I am not aware, but judging from the climate, and the fur of the foxes, I should suppose that the long-woolled sheep would do well, and perhaps improve the staple of its wool, as the merino sheep has done in an opposite manner--by transportation to Australia. Pigs have increased in great numbers on the small islands, where their young are safer from the foxes, and where there is abundance of the sedgy grass called tussac, the roots and stalks of which are much liked by them.
The size and fatness of the wild cattle is a clear proof that the country is adapted for grazing. Of twenty wild bulls which were killed during one excursion of the settlers, shortly before the Beagle’s arrival, the average weight of each hide was above seventy, and a few weighed eighty pounds. Some of these animals are so fat and heavy, that the gauchos say they cannot drive them across the marshy grounds which are passed by the other cattle, as well as by men on horseback. It has been also ascertained that meat takes salt remarkably well in that climate; and as salt of excellent quality, as well as salt-petre, abounds on the coast of Patagonia, there is no reason why large quantities of salt meat and salt fish should not be prepared there, and exported to the Brazils, to the East, to Chile, and Peru, besides supplying a number of the ships which would touch there.
But there are alleged disadvantages to contend against, which must not be overlooked for a moment. It is very doubtful whether corn will ripen. Fruit, which requires much sun, certainly will not, and culinary vegetables have been said to run to stalk and become watery. Nevertheless, Mr. Brisbane assured me that wheat had been tried in Vernet’s garden, and that there it grew well, producing a full ear and large grain. The garden was small, slightly manured, and defended from wind by high turf fences. Potatoes, he said, grew large, though watery; but it was easy to see that justice had not been done to them, whole potatoes having been put into holes and left to take their chance, upon a soil by no means so suitable for them as might have been found. Planted even in this rough way, Mr. Bynoe collected three pounds weight of potatoes from one root. By proper management, I think that they, as well as turnips, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, and other esculent plants, might be brought to great perfection, particularly on sheltered banks sloping towards the north-east. The turnips which I saw and tasted were large and well-flavoured: the largest seen there weighed eight pounds and a-half. Flax has been tried in a garden, and succeeded. Mr. Bynoe saw some of it. Hemp has never yet been tried. Currant bushes (ribes antartica) have been transported from Tierra del Fuego, and tried near the settlement, but their fruit did not ripen properly. It ought, however, to be remembered that those currants are wild, a bad sort of black currant, and that when ripe in Tierra del Fuego they are scarcely eatable.
We read in Bougainville and Wallis, that thousands of young trees were taken up by the roots in the Strait of Magalhaens, and carried to the Falkland Islands; but no traces of them are now visible either at Port Egmont or Port Louis. Perhaps they were taken out of their native soil at an improper period, exposed to frost or salt water, while their roots were uncovered, and afterwards planted by men who knew more of the main brace than of gardening. Bougainville, however, had industrious ‘familles Acadiennes’ with him, under whose care the young trees ought to have fared better than under the charge of Wallis’s boatswain. Mr. Brisbane told me that he had brought over some young trees from Tierra del Fuego for Mr. Vernet; that some had died, but others (which he showed me) were growing well in his garden. From the opinions I have collected on the subject, and from what has been effected on waste lands, downs, and exposed hills in England and Scotland, by planting thousands at once instead of tens, I have no doubt whatever that trees may be grown upon either Falkland, and that the more are planted the better they would grow--assisting and sheltering each other. At first, young plants or trees should have banks of earth raised near them, to break the fury of south-west storms, and the most sheltered situations, with a north-east aspect, should be chosen for a beginning.
Anti-scorbutic plants are plentiful in a wild state, such as celery, scurvy-grass, sorrel, &c.; there are also cranberries,[21] and what the settlers call strawberries, a small red fruit, growing like the strawberry, but in appearance and taste more like a half-ripe blackberry. I must not omit the ‘tea-plant,’ made from which I have drank many cups of good tea,[22] and the settlers use it frequently. It has a peculiar effect at first upon some people, which is of no consequence, and soon goes off.[23] This little plant grows like a heath in many parts of the Falklands as well as in Tierra del Fuego, and has long been known and used by sealers.[24] The large round gum plant (Hydrocelice gummifere), common in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, is abundantly found, and, when dried, is useful for kindling fires, being extremely combustible. The gum which exudes from its stalks when cut or broken, is called by the settlers ‘balsam,’ and they use it quite fresh for wounds; at the least it answers the purpose of sticking-plaister. In summer it may be collected in considerable quantities, without injuring the plants, as it then oozes out spontaneously: even while green, the whole plant is very inflammable. The gauchos, when in the interior of the islands, tear it asunder, set it on fire, and roast their beef before it. Within the stems of the tall sedgy grass, called tussac, is a white sweetish substance, something like the kernel of an unripe nut; this is often eaten by the settlers, and is so much relished by cattle, horses, and pigs, that the plant itself is greatly diminished in quantity, and now can only be found in its former luxuriance upon islands where cattle or hogs have not access. These flags or rushes are more than six feet high; they make good thatch and a soft bed. There is a shrub, or rather creeper, of which the French made a kind of beer, thought to be wholesome and anti-scorbutic; and there are other vegetable productions which are of little consequence, perhaps, except to botanists,[25] and as most of them were long ago well described by Bougainville, I may beg the reader to refer to his fourth chapter (Détails sur l’histoire naturelle des Iles Malouines) for a very faithful and well-written account, to every statement in which, as far as my own knowledge goes, I can bear testimony.
Having mentioned the principal productions, it remains to say what more may be effected and what improvements may be made by an industrious colony. Land, which is now in a state of nature, might be surprisingly improved by ploughing and manuring with burned peat or with kelp, which is so abundant on every part of the shore. Walls, or rather mounds of turf, a few feet in height, would assist the slopes of the ground in sheltering cultivated soil from south-west winds, and where stones, as well as turf, are so plentiful, it would be worth while to make a number of small enclosures for fields as well as gardens, taking care always to select the sides of hills, or rather sloping grounds which incline towards the north-east. Fresh water being abundant every where, and the islands being so much cut into by the sea, that water carriage could be obtained to within a very few miles of any place, there can be no great preference for one locality rather than another, with a view to agriculture alone; but of course the principal settlement must be near the eastern extremity of the archipelago, because that part is most accessible to shipping, and even now frequently visited. A colony planted near Port William, or at Port Louis, with a small establishment to supply the wants of shipping at Port William, could not fail to prosper, if a free port were offered there to ships of all nations. Homeward-bound ships from our rapidly growing colonies in Australia, as well as those from Mexico, Peru, and Chile, are often in want of a port to which they can resort about the middle of their voyage. The River Plata is out of the way and dangerous; Santa Catharina is almost as much out of reach, and deficient in many articles of supply; Rio de Janeiro and Bahia are also out of the line and very expensive, though they are often resorted to; St. Helena is too far east, scantily supplied, and more expensive than the Brazils. But almost every one of those ships ‘sight’ the eastern end of the Falklands as they pass by, to correct or verify their longitude, and how very little delay then would they experience, if the course were shaped so as to pass a little nearer Port William, and there heave to under the lee of the land, or let go an anchor, as might be most suitable. Water and fresh provisions might be speedily procured, at a price now moderate, and if a colony were once well organized, in a short time as low as in any part of the world. A few small vessels should be attached to the colony, and two small men-of-war, one of which should be always about the chief harbour, and the other visiting the various ports of the archipelago. I have alluded more than once to the fact of excellent fresh water being plentiful every where, and I may here add, that if a sailing tank-vessel were kept at Port William in readiness to supply ships without delay, that one convenience only, when generally known, would ensure the visits of almost every Australian and Mexican trader, besides many others. No one making a long voyage hesitates to take in an additional supply of good water during his passage, if he can do so without delay (of consequence) and without danger. It is the natural unwillingness to get in with the land--to be delayed in port--to pay heavy port dues, and to risk losing men--that generally induces seamen in command of vessels to avoid every port excepting that to which they are bound; but if you could ensure to a ship loading at Sydney a safe ‘half-way house’ at the Falklands, she would hardly prefer carrying a quantity of water, no longer necessary, to the proportion of cargo that might be stowed in its place.
Local circumstances, such as the relative position of the land, the set of the tides and currents, the prevailing winds, and the accessibility of Port William or Berkeley Sound, contribute to make the easternmost part of the Falklands safer and more easy to approach than almost any place that I am acquainted with.
With the supply of shipping, and the establishment of a frequented free port in view, as the first source of prosperity, colonists should augment the number of animals, birds, and vegetables, which they see thrive so well there, and take little thought about corn, except for home consumption (unless indeed oats should be found to grow well). They should assiduously increase their stock of cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry, make butter and cheese, rear calves, and breed horses; they should salt meat and fish; bring wood and lime from Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia, and turn their thoughts to supplying ships with water, fuel (perhaps dried peat), and provisions, in the quickest and cheapest manner. Hides, pig-skins, goat-skins, sheep-skins, wool, foxes’ fur, rabbit-skins, bird-skins and down, horns, salt meat, salt butter, cheese, potash, orchilla weed, potatoes, salt-fish, seal-skins, seal-oil, whale-oil, and whale-bone, would form no indifferent return cargo for vessels carrying there implements of husbandry, stores of various kinds, flour and biscuit, clothing, lumber, furniture, crockery-ware, glass, cutlery, and household utensils. North American vessels, laden with flour or lumber, might make very profitable voyages.
I have always thought the Falklands an admirable place for a penal establishment, a thorough convict colony. A healthy, temperate climate, far removed from civilized countries, and (if used for such a purpose only) incapable of being injured by the presence of bad characters, as our mixed settlements have been--fully supplied with necessaries, yet without any luxuries--sufficiently extensive to maintain a large population, though small enough to be kept under the strictest martial law, and inspected every where, by water as well as by land--it seems to me the very best situation for locating those bad characters who are unfit to remain at home. But to whomsoever it may happen to colonize these islands, there can be no doubt that industry will be well rewarded, that health, safety, and a frequent communication with the mother country, will be as certain as in any other colony, and that the only drawbacks to be anticipated are those likely to be caused by wind and deficiency of solar heat.
Animals increase rapidly, and the quality of their hides or fur improves. Cows give a large quantity of excellent milk, from which good butter and cheese may be made. Not long since, a letter was received from the Hon. George Grey, Captain of H.M.S. Cleopatra, in which he said that the milk and butter at Howick was not superior to that which he tasted at the Falklands. In the event of steamers engaging in the navigation of those seas,[26] a port of supply and repair, in short, a maritime depôt would be required, in or near Tierra del Fuego; but no such establishment could easily be formed there without a military force, and occasional hostilities with the natives, whereas, at the Falklands, the only native opponents would be foxes, horses, and bulls.[27] This immense advantage over most habitable and fertile countries--the having no aboriginal population--should be duly considered by those who may contemplate planting a colony there. Weddell says, “A settlement at this point of the South Atlantic would evidently afford great facilities to navigation. The extensive tracts of ground, well clothed with grass, and the quantity of fine cattle running wild on the island, are sufficient proofs of its being a country that might be settled to advantage. The winters are mild, the temperature being seldom so low as the freezing point. Several of my crew, indeed, went without stockings during the greater part of the winters we spent there. The south wind, however, is cold and stormy, but it is not frequent; the prevailing winds are between S.W. and N.W., which, blowing from the coast of Patagonia, are comfortably temperate. This climate appears to be in general much more temperate now than it was forty years ago, the cause of which may probably be, that immense bodies of ice were then annually found in the latitude of 50°; this ice, between the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, would necessarily lower the temperature of both air and water, and consequently an unfavourable opinion of the climate was produced.”--Weddell’s Voyage, pages 94-95.
For much of the produce of the islands, such as salt-meat and fish, potatoes, oil, butter, cheese, tallow, &c. a ready market would always be found on the coasts of South America, while other articles, previously mentioned, would have a free sale in Europe and North America. Should any accident happen to a vessel in doubling Cape Horn, obliging her to make for the nearest port at which she can obtain supplies, where can she now go? To the River Plata on one side, or to Chilóe on the other--either of which is twelve hundred miles from Cape Horn!
A great temptation to shipping would be, the certainty of supplies, and freedom from harbour dues as well as pilotage. Twenty years after the first establishment of a colony would be quite soon enough to think of any port charges, and till that time, every encouragement ought to be given to vessels, by piloting them gratis, and charging for nothing but the supplies which they may choose to purchase, and for those, upon the lowest possible terms. As to pilotage, indeed, I may say that none is required, if a stranger has the chart now published by the Admiralty, for there is no danger in any of the Falkland harbours that is not distinctly buoyed by kelp. A few rocks in the offing are indeed to be guarded against, such as the Uranie Rock, and those near the Jason Isles; but a ship must have passed all those before a pilot could board her, under ordinary circumstances, and afterwards there would be no danger, if a vigilant look-out and common skill were exercised.
Berkeley Sound (besides many other ports) would contain a large fleet in security, while around it are coves and basins in which any repairs might be carried on.
Probably some intercourse might be opened with the Patagonians, and, by them, with other roving tribes on the continent, who would exchange guanacoes, horses, cattle, poultry, hides, horns, tallow, and hair, for hardware, clothing, cutlery, ornaments, saddles, spurs, bridles, &c.; and as the guanaco is so warmly clothed in the high southern latitudes, and is capable of being domesticated,[28] it might be found a valuable animal to encourage among sheep and cattle at the Falklands. Mr. Brisbane told me, that some wool, sent by Mr. Vernet from East Falkland to Liverpool, sold for nearly double the price of Buenos Ayres wool; and this was the produce of sheep which had only been a few years on the island, of the Buenos Ayrean stock, unmixed with any superior breed. To show how well the little colony, established by Mr. Vernet, was succeeding, prior to its harsh and unnecessary ruin by Captain Silas Duncan, I will give an extract of a letter received from a brother officer who visited Port Louis.
“The settlement is situated half round a small cove, which has a narrow entrance from the sound; this entrance, in the time of the Spaniards, was commanded by two forts, both now lying in ruins, the only use made of one being to confine the wild cattle in its circular wall when newly brought in from the interior. The governor, Louis Vernet, received me with cordiality. He possesses much information, and speaks several languages. His house is long and low, of one story, with very thick walls of stone. I found in it a good library, of Spanish, German, and English works. A lively conversation passed at dinner, the party consisting of Mr. Vernet and his wife, Mr. Brisbane, and others; in the evening we had music and dancing. In the room was a grand piano-forte; Mrs. Vernet, a Buenos Ayrean lady, gave us some excellent singing, which sounded not a little strange at the Falkland Isles, where we expected to find only a few sealers.
“Mr. Vernet’s establishment consisted of about fifteen slaves, bought by him from the Buenos Ayrean Government, on the condition of teaching them some useful employment, and having their services for a certain number of years, after which they were to be freed. They seemed generally to be from fifteen to twenty years of age, and appeared contented and happy.
“The total number of persons on the island consisted of about one hundred, including twenty-five gauchos and five Indians. There were two Dutch families (the women of which milked the cows and made butter); two or three Englishmen; a German family; and the remainder were Spaniards and Portuguese, pretending to follow some trade, but doing little or nothing. The gauchos were chiefly Buenos Ayreans; but their capataz or leader was a Frenchman.”
Such was the state of Vernet’s settlement a few months before the Lexington’s visit; and there was then every reason for the settlers to anticipate success, as they, poor deluded people, never dreamed of having no business there without having obtained the permission of the British Government. They thought, naturally enough, that the Buenos Ayrean Government could not have sold the islands to Mr. Vernet, unless the state of La Plata had a right to them; they believed that the purchase-money had been paid;[29] but they were not aware that the British Government had protested formally against the pretended claim of Buenos Ayres, so quiet was that fact kept by the Argentine Government, although the solemn protest was made by Mr. Parish, the British consul-general, in November 1829.
However unjustifiably Mr. Vernet may, in fact, have behaved towards vessels belonging to the United States of North America, it must be remembered that he had a commission from the Buenos Ayrean Government, empowering him to act as civil and military governor of the Falklands; that he believed the Buenos Ayrean authority valid; and had no doubt in his own mind that he was doing right. Mr. Vernet, therefore, was no robber--no pirate--as he was termed by Captain Duncan, because he tried to uphold his situation, and prevent his settlement being robbed by people who had no claim whatever upon any of the islands. However wrong Vernet’s actions may have been, he was responsible to his Government for them; and those who acted under his order, he having a legal commission, certainly did not deserve to be seized as pirates, put into irons, and so carried to the Plata! Neither was it just (setting mercy quite aside) to destroy the infant colony, break open or tear down doors and windows, search houses, drawers, and chests, trample over gardens, break through fences, and ill-use the helpless, unarmed settlers to such a degree, that for many months afterwards whenever a man-of-war was seen approaching, the frightened inhabitants at once fled to the interior, not knowing how they might be treated. Poor Brisbane (of whom frequent mention has already been made, and of whom I have yet to speak), was taken, with others, in irons to Monte Video, where the British consul obtained his release; he had joined Vernet in a contract to take seal upon the Falklands, and was left in charge of the settlement at the period of Captain Duncan’s hostility. At that time Vernet himself was absent, having gone with his family to Buenos Ayres, in order that he might attend at the ensuing trial of those sealing vessels which had been detained by him for repeatedly taking seal upon the Falkland Islands, after he had duly warned them off.
I have heard much of Mr. Vernet and his proceedings, from various quarters--from enemies as well as friends--and although I never met him, and therefore cannot be partial from friendship, I do sincerely pity his misfortunes; and it is my belief that he has been much misrepresented.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Sea-weed detached from the rocks and drifting with the current.
[2] The month which, in that hemisphere, corresponds to July in ours.
[3] A seaman may naturally ask here, and at other passages where reference is made to the barometer, “What is considered low for that place?” and as a reply may be obtained more satisfactorily by consulting the Meteorological Journal, in the appendix, than by receiving an answer in figures (barometers and direction of wind varying so much), I will beg him to look at that Journal.
[4] Mr. Low scarcely ever found two succeeding years alike, as to wind and weather, during the corresponding seasons.
[5] “The settlers, when they abandoned the eastern island, left behind them several horses and horned cattle, which have increased so much, that, on going a few miles into the country, droves of both animals may be seen. I have taken several of the bullocks by shooting them. They are generally ferocious, and will attack a single person; and thus, those who hunt them are enabled to get within pistol-shot of them by the following stratagem. Four or five men advance in a line upon the animal, and, by appearing only as one person, it stands ready to attack, till within one hundred yards, when the hunters spread themselves, and fire, endeavouring to shoot the bullock either in the head or in the fore-shoulder. The horses will also attack a single person, and their mode of doing so is by forming a circle round him, and prancing upon him; but by means of a musquet they may be readily dispersed.”--Weddell’s Voyage, pp. 102, 103.
[6] “Le loup-renard, ainsi nommé parce qu’il se creuse un terrier, et que sa queue est plus longue et plus fournie de poil que celle du loup, habite dans les dunes sur le bord de la mer. Il suit le gibier et se fait des routes avec intelligence, toujours par le plus court chemin d’une baie à l’autre; à notre première descente à terre, nous ne doutâmes point que ce ne fussent des sentiers d’habitans. Il y a apparence que cet animal jeûne une partie de l’année, tant il est maigre et rare. Il est de la taille d’un chien ordinaire dont il a aussi l’aboiement, mais foible. Comment a-t-il été transporté sur les îles?”--Voyage de Bougainville, seconde édition, tome i. p. 113.
[7] “They saw foxes on this land, which, Simson says, ‘were twice as big as those in England. Having brought greyhounds with us, we caught a young fox alive, which we kept on board some months, but on the first firing our great guns in the South Sea, he was frighted overboard, as were also some St. Jago monkies. As to the antiquity of these foxes, as they cannot fly, and it is not likely they should swim so far as from America, nor again is it probable that any would be at the pains of bringing a breed of foxes so far as Hawkins’ Island is from any other land, it will follow that there have either been two distinct creations, or that America and this land have been formerly the same continent.’ There are means more within the common course of nature than those which occurred to Simson, by which foxes may have become inhabitants of this land. Islands of ice are met at sea in much lower southern latitudes, many of which, no doubt, are formed in the bays and rivers of the continent. Seals and sea-birds repose on the edge of the shore, whether it is ice or land, and foxes, or other animals, in search of prey, will frequently be carried away on the large pieces of ice which break off and are driven out to sea.”--Burney, vol. iv. pp. 331-332.
[8] The country they range over being open, without trees, does not require them to steal along under branches, like the foxes of a woody country.
[9] Page 107 of this volume.
[10] Burney, vol. i. p. 37.
[11] Page 296.
[12] Forster, as an exception, saw no difficulty in accounting for their involuntary migration. “M. Forster, Anglais, de la Société Royale, qui a fait à cet ouvrage l’honneur de le traduire, a accompagné sa traduction de plusieurs notes.”--“Je dois dire que toutes ses notes ne sont pas également justes: par exemple, dans le chapitre de l’Histoire Naturelle des Iles Malouines, il est surpris de ce que je le suis d’avoir trouvé sur ces îles un animal quadrupède, et de mon embarras sur la manière dont il a été transporté. Il ajoute qu’ayant passé comme je l’ai fait plusieurs années en Canada, j’aurois dû savoir que des quadrupèdes terrestres se trouvant sur de grandes glaces au moment où elles sont détachées des terres, sont emportées à la haute mer, et abordent à des côtes fort éloignées de leur pays natal, sur lesquelles ces masses de glace viennent échouer. Je sais ce fait; mais M. Forster ne sait pas que jamais les voyageurs n’ont rencontré de glaces flottantes dans les environs des îles Malouines, et que dans ces contrées il ne s’y en peut pas former, n’y ayant ni grand fleuve ni même aucune rivière un peu considérable.”--Voyage de Bougainville, seconde edition, tom. i. pp. xiv. et xv. (note).
[13] In Viedma’s Diary of an Expedition to Port San Julian in 1780, he says, “El Bergantin San Francisco de Paula entrò en el riachuelo para descargarlo y dar humazo a las ratas.” (The brig San Francisco de Paulo went into the creek to be unloaded and smoked, to kill the rats (or mice, ratas signifying either)). In Magalhaens’ voyage (1520) “Juan (a Patagonian) seeing the Spaniards throwing mice into the sea, desired he might have them for food; and those that were afterwards taken being given to him, he carried them on shore.”--Burney, vol. i. p. 34. Perhaps some of those mice reached land alive, as the ships lay close to the shore. Many other vessels, however, afterwards staid some time in Port San Julian, particularly those of Drake.
[14] On the little island ‘Lobos,’ in the river Plata, passed and therefore to a certain degree disturbed daily by shipping, seals are numerous; being preserved like game, and destroyed only at intervals.
[15] Where fish, though plentiful, does not take salt well.
[16] Many tons have been taken at a haul.
[17] One kind of goose, that which has erroneously been called a bustard, arrives in a tame condition, about April or May, with easterly winds. Perhaps these birds come from Sandwich Land, or even Enderby Land. Their tameness may be a consequence of being ignorant of man, or of the half-tired state in which they arrive.
[18] Birds’ eggs are so numerous at the proper season, that “eight men gathered at one place alone, in four or five days, upwards of sixty thousand eggs, and might have collected twice that number had they remained a few days longer.”--Vernet, MS. 1831.
[19] “The want of wood on these islands would be a great inconvenience, were it not that good peat is very abundant. I have burned many tons, and found it an excellent substitute for coal. In order to get it dry, it is necessary to pull it from the sides of the pit, not very deep; and as there are several peat-holes, by working them alternately, the material may be procured in a state fit for use.”--Weddell’s Voyage, p. 88.
[20] The manner of extracting potash from sea-weed is as follows:--When a sufficient quantity of kelp has been collected, it is spread out in a place where it will be dried by the sun and wind, and when dry enough to burn, a hollow is dug in the ground three or four feet wide; round its margin are laid stones, on which the weed is placed and set on fire. Quantities of this fuel being continually heaped upon the circle, there is in the centre a constant flame, from which a liquid substance, like melted metal, drops into the hollow beneath. This substance is worked, or stirred, with iron rakes, and brought to an uniform consistence while in a state of fusion; and when cool, it consolidates into a heavy, dark-coloured alkaline substance, which undergoes in the glass-houses a second vitrification, and then assumes a perfect transparency.
[21] One reason for the arrival of flights of geese during April and May may be, that the cranberries are then ripe, of which they are very fond.
[22] At my own table I have seen it drank by the officers without their detecting the difference: yet the only tea I used at other times was the best that could be obtained at Rio de Janeiro.
[23] U----m ciens.
[24] It produces a small berry, of very pleasant taste, which when ripe is eaten as fruit.
[25] “On a spot, twelve feet square, chosen indiscriminately on the rising grounds in the interior, twenty-seven different plants were counted.”--(Vernet, MS.)
[26] From Concepcion (37° S.) to Elizabeth Island, near the eastern entrance of Magalhaens Strait, there is every where abundance of wood fuel for steamers.
[27] It is very dangerous for persons on foot to approach the wild horses or cattle, especially the bulls, unless they are armed with rifles or balls (bolas); and even then, no one ought to venture alone.
[28] “Magalhaens, in his voyage, saw Patagonians who had with them four young guanacoes, led about with a kind of halter.”--Burney, vol. i. p. 34, anno 1520.--And others on which they placed their wives. Pennant. At Mocha the natives had tame guanacoes, or alpacoes, in 1598. In Peru, the llama has been a domestic animal as long as we have any record.
[29] It is said that officers in the Buenos Ayrean army, relations of Mrs. Vernet, had claims upon their Government, which they agreed should be liquidated by receiving certain sums of money from Mr. Vernet; in consideration of which the Government made over to him their pretended right of property in the Falklands and Staten Land.
Chapter XIII
Anchor in Berkeley Sound--Le Magellan--British flag hoisted--Ruined Settlement--Mr. Hellyer drowned--Burial--French Whalers--Unicorn --Adventure--Squall--Flashes--Fossils--Killing Wild Cattle--Sail from Falklands--River Negro--Maldonado--Constitucion--Heave down, copper, and refit Adventure--Signs of weather--Sound banks--Los Cesares--Settle with Harris, and part company--Blanco Bay--Return to Maldonado--Monte Video.
March 1. The Beagle anchored at the south side of Berkeley Sound (near the beach where Freycinet was obliged to run l’Uranie ashore, in 1820, after striking on the detached rock off Volunteer Point), and remained there till I had ascertained the state of affairs on shore: for seeing a French flag flying near some tents behind Johnson Cove or harbour, and knowing that, in 1831, the flag of Buenos Ayres was hoisted at a settlement in the sound, it was evident a change of some kind had occurred. Directly our anchor had dropped, a whale-boat belonging to the wrecked whale-ship, ‘Le Magellan,’ came alongside; and from her chief mate (who was also whaling-master), we learned that his ship had parted from her anchors during a tremendous squall on the night of the 12th of January, and was totally wrecked. He then informed me that the British colours had been hoisted on these islands by H.M.S. Clio; and that H.M.S. Tyne had since visited the port and saluted the flag; that the white flag was hoisted at the French tents only as a signal to us; and that he was sent by M. le Dilly, his captain, to entreat us to render them assistance. Two of our boats were forthwith manned; one was sent to the settlement at Port Louis, and in the other I went to the Frenchmen at Johnson Cove. I found them very comfortably established in large tents made from the sails of their lost ship; but they manifested extreme impatience to get away from the islands, even at the risk of abandoning the vessel and cargo. After due inquiry, I promised to carry as many of them as I could to Monte Video, and to interest myself in procuring a passage for the rest.
Their ship was lying upon a sandy beach, one bilge stove in, and her hold full of sand and water; but as there was no surf, and at high spring-tide the sea rose only to her deck, all the stores and provisions, if not the ship herself, might have been saved by energetic application of proper means soon after she was stranded. When I saw her it was not too late, but I had too many urgent duties to fulfil to admit of my helping those who would not help themselves. Returning on board, I met Mr. Chaffers, who had been to Port Louis, and heard that there was no constituted authority whatever resident on the islands, but that the British flag had been left by Captain Onslow in charge of an Irishman, who had been Mr. Vernet’s storekeeper. This man at first declined answering Mr. Chaffers’s questions, because his uniform buttons were (as he thought) different from those of the Tyne’s officers; however, being a simple character, he soon became more loquacious than was wished. He told Mr. Chaffers that he was ordered to ‘hoist the flag up and down’ when vessels arrived, and every Sunday: that there was ‘plenty of beef,’ and as for rabbits and geese, only the ‘poor people eat them.’
2d. Weighed and shifted our berth to Johnson Cove. 3d. We got on board all the new rope, bread, salt meat, and small stores, which the Frenchmen had saved and wished us to embark for the benefit of their owners. Meanwhile, surveying operations were begun, and an officer despatched to the settlement, who informed me of the arrival of a merchant schooner (Rapid), fourteen days from Buenos Ayres, with Mr. Brisbane on board (as Vernet’s agent as well as partner), who was delighted to meet our officer, finding in him one of those who helped to save his life when wrecked in the Saxe Cobourg in 1827.
No sooner had Mr. Brisbane landed than the master and crew of the Rapid hastened to make themselves drunk, as an indemnification for the fatigues of their exceedingly long and hazardous voyage: and in that state they were found by the Beagle’s officer. Next morning Brisbane came on board with his papers, and I was quite satisfied with their tenor, and the explanation which he gave me of his business. Some misapprehension having since arisen about his being authorized by Vernet to act in his stead, I may here mention again (though no longer of any material consequence), that Brisbane’s instructions from Vernet authorized him to act as his private agent only, to look after the remains of his private property, and that they had not the slightest reference to civil or military authority. This settled, I went to Port Louis, but was indeed disappointed. Instead of the cheerful little village I once anticipated finding--a few half-ruined stone cottages; some straggling huts built of turf; two or three stove boats; some broken ground where gardens had been, and where a few cabbages or potatoes still grew; some sheep and goats; a few long-legged pigs; some horses and cows; with here and there a miserable-looking human being,--were scattered over the fore-ground of a view which had dark clouds, ragged-topped hills, and a wild waste of moorland to fill up the distance.
“How is this?” said I, in astonishment, to Mr. Brisbane; “I thought Mr. Vernet’s colony was a thriving and happy settlement. Where are the inhabitants? the place seems deserted as well as ruined.” “Indeed, Sir, it was flourishing,” said he, “but the Lexington ruined it: Captain Duncan’s men did such harm to the houses and gardens. I was myself treated as a pirate--rowed stern foremost on board the Lexington--abused on her quarter-deck most violently by Captain Duncan--treated by him more like a wild beast than a human being--and from that time guarded as a felon, until I was released by order of Commodore Rogers.” “But,” I said, “where are the rest of the settlers? I see but half a dozen, of whom two are old black women; where are the gauchos who kill the cattle?” “Sir, they are all in the country. They have been so much alarmed by what has occurred, and they dread the appearance of a ship of war so much, that they keep out of the way till they know what she is going to do.” I afterwards interrogated an old German, while Brisbane was out of sight, and after him a young native of Buenos Ayres, who both corroborated Brisbane’s account.[1]
At my return on board, I was shocked by the sad information that Mr. Hellyer was drowned. He had walked about a mile along the shore of a creek near the ship, with one of the Frenchmen, who then left him[2] (having recollected that he would be wanted for a particular purpose). Mr. Hellyer, anxious to shoot some ducks of a kind he had not before seen, walked on with his gun, saying he would return in half an hour.
About an hour after this, the capataz of the gauchos, Jean Simon by name, riding towards the French tents to learn the news, saw clothes, a gun, and a watch, lying by the water side; but, as no person was in sight, he thought they must have belonged to some one in the boats which were surveying, so rode on quietly; and not until another hour had elapsed, did he even casually mention to the Frenchmen what he had seen. They, of course, were instantly alarmed and hastened to the spot, with those of our party who were within reach. Some rode or ran along the shore, while others pulled in whale-boats to the fatal spot, and there, after much searching, the body was discovered under water, but so entangled by kelp that it could not be extricated without cutting away the weed. Mr. Bynoe was one of those who found it, and every means that he and the French surgeon could devise for restoring animation was tried in vain. A duck was found dead in the kelp not far from the body, and his gun was lying on the beach, discharged, with which the bird had been shot.
To me this was as severe a blow as to his own messmates; for Mr. Hellyer had been much with me, both as my clerk and because I liked his company, being a gentlemanly, sensible young man. I also felt that the motive which urged him to strip and swim after the bird he had shot, was probably a desire to get it for my collection. Being alone and finding the water cold, he may have become alarmed, then accidentally entangling his legs in the sea-weed, lost his presence of mind, and by struggling hastily was only more confused. The rising tide must have considerably augmented his distress, and hastened the fatal result.
5th. This day we buried the body of our lamented young friend, on a rising ground near Johnson Cove, in sight of our ship. All the French attended the melancholy ceremony, as well as all our own party, excepting the very few who were obliged to stay on board.
6th. An agreement was brought about, and witnessed by me, between M. le Dilly and the master of the Rapid schooner, by which the latter bound himself to convey to Monte Video those of the Magellan’s crew whom the Beagle could not carry: and next day another French whaler arrived (the fourth we had lately seen), belonging to the owners of the Magellan, so there was no longer any want of help for M. le Dilly.
A few days afterwards a sealing schooner, the Unicorn, arrived, Mr. William Low being sealing master and part owner; and, although considered to be the most enterprizing and intelligent sealer on those shores, perhaps anywhere, the weather had been so much against him that he returned from his six months’ cruise a ruined man, with an empty ship. All his means had been employed to forward the purchase and outfit of the fine vessel in which he sailed; but having had, as he assured me, a continued succession of gales during sixty-seven days, and, taking it altogether, the worst season he had known during twenty years’ experience, he had been prevented from taking seal, and was ruined. Passengers with him were the master and crew of a North American sealing schooner, the Transport, which had been wrecked on the south-west coast of Tierra del Fuego, in Hope Harbour; and he told me of two other wrecks, all occasioned by the gale of January 12-13th.
At this time I had become more fully convinced than ever that the Beagle could not execute her allotted task before she, and those in her, would be so much in need of repair and rest, that the most interesting part of her voyage--the carrying a chain of meridian distances around the globe--must eventually be sacrificed to the tedious, although not less useful, details of coast surveying.
Our working ground lay so far from ports at which supplies could be obtained, that we were obliged to occupy whole months in making passages merely to get provisions, and then overload our little vessel to a most inconvenient degree, as may be supposed, when I say that eight months’ provisions was our usual stock at starting, and that we sailed twice with ten months’ supply on board.[3]
I had often anxiously longed for a consort, adapted for carrying cargoes, rigged so as to be easily worked with few hands, and able to keep company with the Beagle; but when I saw the Unicorn, and heard how well she had behaved as a sea-boat, my wish to purchase her was unconquerable. A fitter vessel I could hardly have met with, one hundred and seventy tons burthen, oak built, and copper fastened throughout, very roomy, a good sailer, extremely handy, and a first-rate sea-boat; her only deficiencies were such as I could supply, namely, a few sheets of copper, and an outfit of canvas and rope. A few days elapsed, in which she was surveyed very carefully by Mr. May, and my mind fully made up, before I decided to buy her, and I then agreed to give six thousand dollars (nearly £1,300) for immediate possession. Being part owner, and authorized by the other owners to do as he thought best with the vessel in case of failure, Mr. Low sold her to me, payment to be made into his partners’ hands at Monte Video. Some of his crew being ‘upon the lay,’ that is, having agreed to be paid for their work by a small proportion of the cargo obtained, preferred remaining at the Falklands to seek for employment in other vessels, others procured a passage in the Rapid, and a few were engaged by me to serve in their own vessel which, to keep up old associations, I named ‘Adventure.’ Mr. Chaffers and others immediately volunteered to go in her temporarily (for I intended to place Mr. Wickham in her if he should be willing to undertake the responsibility), and no time was lost in cleaning her out thoroughly, loading her with stores purchased by me from M. le Dilly and from Mr. Bray (lately master of the Transport), and despatching her to Maldonado, to be prepared for her future employment.
This schooner was built at Rochester as a yacht for Mr. Perkins, and, as I have reason to believe, cost at least six thousand pounds in building and first outfit. Soon afterwards, she was armed and used by Lord Cochrane in the Mediterranean; then she was fitted out by a merchant to break the blockade of Buenos Ayres; but, taken by a Brazilian man-of-war, and carried into Monte Video, she was condemned as a prize and sold to Mr. Hood, the British Consul, who went to England and back again in her with his family; after which, she was fitted out for the sealing expedition I have mentioned. At the time of my purchase she was in want of a thorough refit, and her internal arrangements required alteration; but it happened that Mr. Bray and M. le Dilly had each saved enough from their respective vessels to enable me to load the Adventure on the spot with all that she would require; from the former I bought anchors, cables, and other stores, amounting to £216: and from M. le Dilly rope, canvas, and small spars, for which £187 were paid. Those who were conversant in such matters, the master, boatswain, and carpenter of the Beagle, as well as others, assured me that these articles were thus obtained for less than a third of their market prices in frequented ports.
While the Beagle lay in Johnson Cove, we witnessed a memorable instance of the strength with which squalls sometimes sweep across the Falklands. Our ship was moored with a cable each way in a land-locked cove, not a mile across, and to the south-westward of her, three cables’ length distant, was a point of land which, under ordinary circumstances, would have protected her from sea, if not from wind. Our largest boat, the yawl, was moored near our eastern anchor, with a long scope of small chain. At six in the evening of a stormy day (10th March), the wind increased suddenly from the strength of a fresh gale to that of a hurricane, and in a few minutes the Beagle brought both anchors ahead, and was pitching her forecastle into the sea. Top-gallant-masts were on deck, and yards braced sharp up all day; but we were obliged to let go a third anchor, and even then had some anxiety for the result. Till this squall came, the water had been smooth, though of course covered with white crests (‘horses’); but it was then changed into a short sea, such as I should have been slow to believe wind could have raised in that confined cove. The yawl, an excellent sea-boat, and quite light, was swamped at her moorings; but I think that the chief cause of her filling was a quantity of kelp which drifted athwart hawse and hindered her rising easily to the sea.
During the month we remained in Berkeley Sound, I had much trouble with the crews of whaling or small sealing vessels, as well as with the settlers, who all seemed to fancy that because the British flag was re-hoisted on the Falklands, they were at liberty to do what they pleased with Mr. Vernet’s private property, as well as with the wild cattle and horses. The gauchos wished to leave the place, and return to the Plata, but as they were the only useful labourers on the islands, in fact, the only people on whom any dependance could be placed for a regular supply of fresh beef, I interested myself as much as possible to induce them to remain, and with partial success, for seven staid out of twelve.
While walking the deck after dark, I sometimes saw flashes of light on the distant hills, which it was difficult to account for as ‘ignes fatui,’ because they were seen only on the heights, and momentarily, long intervals intervening between each faint flash. I once remarked similar instantaneous glimpses of feeble light, like the flashing of a distant pistol, near Pecket Harbour, in Magalhaens Strait, during a rainy night, but on the hills, at the south side of Berkeley Sound, I witnessed such lights repeatedly. They were never bright or lasting--merely a faint sudden glimmer--exactly as I have said, like the flash of a pistol, fired at a great distance. It has since occurred to me, that the phosphoric light spoken of by Bougainville in the following passage may be of a nature similar to that which I saw, and that those momentary flashes might have been caused by the occasional fall of stones among ravines, near the summits of hills. “Des voyages entrepris jusqu’ au sommet des montagnes (pour chercher des calcaires), n’en (de pierre) ont fait voir que d’une nature de quartz et de grès non friable, produisant des étincelles, et même une lumière phosphorique, accompagnée d’une odeur sulphureuse.”--(Bougainville, Voyage autour du Monde, 1766-69, tome I., p. 100).
The shattered state of most summits of mountains in these regions[4] has often struck me, many of them being mere heaps of rocks and stones, over which it is extremely difficult to climb. Mount Skyring may be cited as one remarkable instance; there, the stones gave out a very sulphureous smell when struck together, and were strongly magnetic.[5] Lightning, electricity, and magnetism being intimately related, one is led to think that, if the above conjecture is incorrect, there may be some connexion between these sudden glimpses of faint light and the transmission of the electric fluid. This much I am certain of, that they were not lights made by man, and that they were different from the will-o’-the-wisp, or ignis fatuus.
My own employment obliged me to remain near the ship, but some of the officers made excursions into the interior, and to them and Mr. Brisbane I am indebted for most of the following notices of these islands.
Some very large bones were seen a long way from the sea-shore, and some hundred feet above the level of high water, near St. Salvador Bay. How they got there had often puzzled Mr. Vernet, and Brisbane also, who had examined them with attention; Brisbane told me they were whale’s bones.[6] The rocky summits of all the hills are amazingly broken up, like those of far higher elevations in Tierra del Fuego, and the fragments--some very large--have rolled down the nearest ravines, so that they look like the beds of dried-up torrents. The sand-stone, which is abundant, offers beautifully perfect impressions of shells, many of which were brought to England. In these fossils the minutest portions of delicate shells are preserved, as in a plaster of Paris cast, though the stone is now very hard. There are fine stalactites in some large caverns, but they are known only to a few sealers. The large muscles produce pearls of considerable size, though inferior quality, perhaps; Mr. Brisbane had a small bottle full. In one of the cottages I saw a heap of good whale-bone, and was informed that some hundred pounds worth had been picked up on the coasts, and sold to whalers for a tenth part of its European value, in exchange for clothes, spirits, ammunition, and biscuit. On West Falkland there are beautiful pebbles, and on the heights fine crystals have been found.
Although the climate is so much colder than that of Buenos Ayres, the gauchos sleep in the open air, when in the interior, under their saddles, just as they do in the latitude of 35°. While idling at the settlement they gamble, quarrel, and fight with long knives, giving each other severe wounds. With their loose ponchos, slouched hats, long hair, dark complexions, and Indian eyes, they are characters fitter for the pencil of an artist than for the quiet hearth of an industrious settler. Besides these gauchos, we saw five Indians (p. 267), who had been taken by the Buenos Ayrean troops, or their allies, and allowed to leave prison on condition of going with Mr. Vernet to the Falklands. Including the crews of some thirty whale-ships, hovering about or at anchor among the islands; the men of several American vessels, all armed with rifles; the English sealers with their clubs, if not also provided with rifles; these cut-throat looking gauchos; the discontented, downcast Indian prisoners, and the crews of several French whalers--who could not or would not see why they had not as good a right to the islands as Englishmen--there was no lack of the elements of discord; and it was with a heavy heart and gloomy forebodings that I looked forward to the months which might elapse without the presence of a man-of-war, or the semblance of any regular authority.
Our tender, the Adventure, sailed on the 4th of April, under the charge of Mr. Chaffers, who was desired to call off the River Negro, and thence go to Maldonado, moor his vessel close to Gorriti Island, land every thing, and commence her thorough refit.
About this time one of the officers went to see some wild cattle taken. After riding far beyond the hills seen from Port Louis, a black speck was discerned in the distance--instantly the three gauchos stopped, adjusted their saddle-gear, lassoes, and balls, and then cantered off in different directions. While stopping, my shipmate saw that the black spot moved and doubled its size. Directly afterwards, he perceived five other black things, and taking it for granted they were cattle, asked no questions of his taciturn, though eager, companions, but watched their movements and galloped on with the capataz (Jean Simon), the other two making a détour round some hills. Having got down wind of the herd, Simon slackened his pace, and, lying along his horse’s back, gradually ascended a slight eminence, beyond which the cattle were feeding. For a moment he stopped to look round:--there was a monstrous bull within a hundred yards of him; three hundred yards further, were about twenty cows; and in a valley beyond, was a large herd of wild cattle. Just then the heads of the other two men were seen a quarter of a mile on one side, also to leeward of the cattle, which were still feeding unsuspiciously. With a sudden dash onwards, such as those horses are trained to make, Simon was within twenty yards of the overgrown, but far from unwieldy brute, before he could ‘get way on.’ Whirling the balls around his head, Simon hurled them so truly at the bull’s fore-legs, that down he came, with a blow that made the earth tremble, and rolled over and over. Away went Simon at full gallop after a fine cow; and at the same time, each of the other men were in full chase of their animals. The herd galloped off almost as fast as horses; but in a few moments, another bull was bellowing in impotent rage, and two cows were held tightly by lassoes--one being caught by Simon alone, and the other by his two companions. One of the men jumped off, and fastened his cow’s legs together so securely, that she could only limp along a few inches at a time; his horse meanwhile keeping the second lasso tight, as effectually as if his master had been on his back. Both lassoes were then shaken off, and one thrown over Simon’s cow, which had been trying in all kinds of ways to escape from or gore her active enemy, who--go which way she would--always kept the lasso tight; and often, by checking her suddenly, half overset and thoroughly frightened her. Leaving his horse as soon as the cow was secure, Simon hamstrung the bulls, and left them where they fell, roaring with pain and rage. He then remounted, and all four cantered back towards the ‘estancia’ (or farm), where the tame cattle are kept. Simon was asked to kill the poor brutes before he left them; but he shook his head, with a sneer, and remarked, that their hides would come off easier next day! At daybreak, the following morning, half-a-dozen tame cattle were driven out to the place of slaughter, and with them the frightened and already half-tamed cows (which had been left tied in a place where they had nothing to eat), were easily driven in to the farm. The two bulls were at last killed, skinned, cut up, and the best parts of their carcases carried to the settlement. The hides of those two animals weighed seventy-three and eighty-one pounds.
Speaking to Simon myself one day about the indiscriminate slaughter of cattle which I had heard took place occasionally, he told me that the gauchos used sometimes to kill them for their tongues only, and, perhaps, a steak or two, for ‘asado’ (meat roasted on a stick), without taking the trouble to skin them; being too great epicures in their way to feast twice upon the same animal.
In 1834, while surveying the sea-coast of these islands, in the Adventure, Lieutenant Wickham, Mr. Low, and Mr. Johnson had many a bull hunt; but though there was as much or more risk in their encounters, being on foot, with rifles, assisted only by a good dog, their adventures were individually rather than generally interesting. They used to land in unfrequented harbours, very near herds of wild cattle or horses, creep quietly along behind tussac or bushes, till they got within rifle-shot, take good aim at the fattest, and after firing, do their best to kill the animal, in general only wounded by a first shot. They had an excellent dog, who always seized the creatures by the lower lip, and diverted their attention from Mr. Johnson or Low, who otherwise might have lost their lives, on more than two occasions.
The report of a gun usually alarmed the whole herd of cows, and off they went at a gallop; but the lordly bulls were not to be hurried, they would stand and face their enemies, often charge them; when a precipitate retreat behind a rock, or to the boat, or across a boggy place, which the bull would not try, was the only resource, if their hardy dog was not by, to seize the angry animal, and give time for a well-directed shot. In those excursions, also, while ashore at night in small tents, the foxes used to plague them continually, poking their unpleasant heads into the opening of the tent (while the man on watch was by the fire), stealing their provisions, and breaking their rest, after a fatiguing day’s work. What with the foxes, the wild bulls, and the wild horses, it is thoroughly unsafe for a person to walk alone about the unfrequented parts of the Falkland Islands--even with the best weapons for self-defence against either man or beast. Several unfortunate people have been missed there, who wandered away from their parties.
April 6.--Having embarked M. le Dilly, with some of his officers and crew, and lumbered our little ship with the spars and stores purchased from him, we sailed from the Falklands. Our passage to within sight of the river Negro was short, though stormy, a south-east gale driving us before it, under a close-reefed fore-topsail. As the sea ran high, it might have been more prudent to have ‘hove-to;’ but time was precious, and our vessel’s qualities as a sea-boat, scudding as well as ‘by the wind,’ were well known.
Early on the 12th, we were off the river Negro; but baffling winds and a heavy swell (raised by the late gale), prevented our anchoring near the bar, or sending in a boat.
Soon after noon on the 14th, while standing off and on, waiting for the swell to go down, and allow of a boat crossing the bar, a sail seen in the horizon was made out to be the Adventure. We steered for and spoke her, found all well, sent her on to Maldonado, and again stood towards the bar. Our tender, as I mentioned, sailed from Berkeley Sound on the 4th; but was obliged to heave-to during the gale in which we were able to scud.
Next day (15th), a decked boat, like the Paz, with some difficulty crossed the bar, and brought me letters from Lieutenant Wickham, by which I learned that he and his party had sailed from the river, intending to visit the Gulf of San Matias, only a few days before we arrived, having previously examined all the coast, from Port Desire to Valdes Creek.[7] I was sorry to hear that Corporal Williams, a very worthy man, in every sense of the words, had been drowned in the river Negro. Williams had been in two polar voyages, and under Captain King, in H.M.S. Adventure, from 1825 to 1830. The rest of the party were well, and making rapid progress with their task. Wind favouring, we made all sail for the Bay of San José, hoping to meet the little vessels under Lieutenant Wickham, but could not find them;[8] so concluding that they had run further south than was intended at their departure from the Negro, we steered out of the Gulf of San Matias, and made sail for the Plata.
At daylight on the 26th, land was seen near Maldonado, and at two, we anchored off Monte Video. In a few hours the French passengers were landed; next day our anchor was again weighed, and at noon on the 28th we moored the Beagle in Maldonado Bay, close to the little island of Gorriti. Our tender, the Adventure, had arrived on the 23d. My thoughts were at this time occupied by arrangements connected with her, besides the usual routine observations. I was extremely anxious to fit the schooner properly, and to set her to work, but at the same time to keep all our other operations in active progress. A decked boat was lying in Maldonado, just built, which her owner, Don Francisco Aguilar, offered to lend me for two months, if I would rig her for him, and this proposal exactly suited my views, as it would enable me to send for Lieutenant Wickham, and supply his place by Mr. Usborne, leaving Mr. Stokes to continue the survey about San Blas and the Colorado. Accordingly, the Constitucion, as this little craft was named by her owner, was hauled alongside, and Mr. Usborne with a party, set to work in preparing her for a trip to the River Negro. On the 1st May Mr. Usborne sailed, having with him Mr. Forsyth and five men; he was to go to the River Negro, join and assist Mr. Stokes, and inform Lieutenant Wickham that he was wanted at Maldonado, to take charge of the Adventure. The Constitucion was about the size of the Liebre, a craft I should hardly have thought fit for such a voyage had I not heard so much from Mr. Harris and his companion, Roberts, of the capital weather those decked boats make in a gale. With their hatches secured, tiller unshipped, a storm try-sail--or no sail at all set, and nobody on deck, they tumble about like hollow casks, without caring for wind or sea.
Next day (2d) the Beagle returned to Monte Video, to procure carpenters, plank, and copper for the Adventure. I found that she was so fine a vessel, and so sound, that it was well worth while to copper her entirely afresh, with a view to her future operations among islands in the Pacific, where worms would soon eat through places on a vessel’s bottom from which sheets of copper had been torn away. At this time the Adventure’s copper was complete, but thin, and as the carpenters said it would not last above two years more with certainty, I determined to copper her forthwith, and make one substantial refit do for all. Here, to my great regret, Mr. Hamond decided to return to England,[9] and we consequently lost a valuable member of our small society.
On the 17th, having engaged men and purchased plank, copper, provisions and other necessaries, we sailed from Monte Video, and next morning anchored in Maldonado. As soon as a part of our cargo was landed--all that was then wanted by the working party on Gorriti, under Mr. Chaffers--we proceeded up the river to fill water, anchored again off Monte Video for a short time, and returned to our future consort at Gorriti (24th). Preparations were then commenced for heaving the schooner down to copper her. We hauled her alongside, and on the 28th hove her ‘keel out,’ for a few hours, and righted her again at dark. While standing on her keel, examining the state of her copper and planking, I saw a sail in the offing, which was soon made out to be the Constitucion, and just after we righted the schooner Lieut. Wickham came alongside. He brought good tidings--without drawback--and those who know what it is to feel anxiety for the safety of friends whose lives are risked by their willingness to follow up the plans of their commanding officer--however critical those plans may be--will understand my sensations that night. The Constitucion anchored off the Negro on the 11th, entered it next day, found the Paz and Liebre there, and on the 17th sailed again. Six knots and a-half an hour was the most she could accomplish under any circumstances, yet her passages were very good, considering the distance. During June we remained in Maldonado, employed about the Adventure, and refitting as well as painting our own ship. Meanwhile Mr. Darwin was living on shore, sometimes at the village of Maldonado, sometimes making excursions into the country to a considerable distance; and my own time was fully occupied by calculations and chart-work, while the officers attended to heaving down the Adventure. This process, in a place partly exposed to south-west winds, was extremely tedious, and had it not been for the great advantages Maldonado and Gorriti offered in other respects, the situation might have been deemed exceedingly ill-chosen for such a purpose. Only when there was no swell could we haul her alongside and heave her down (an operation under any circumstances difficult, as she was one hundred and seventy tons in burthen, and we were but two hundred and thirty-five) and many days sometimes intervened on which no progress could be made. Every morning, at dawn of day, Lieut. Sulivan and I used to watch the sky most anxiously, in order to know whether it would be worth while unmooring, and warping the vessels together, and as the indications we looked for never deceived us, I will here mention them. Though familiar to all who lead a country or seafaring life, and often rise before the sun, they may be of use to others, whose attention has not been drawn to ‘weather wisdom.’
When the first streak of light appeared close to the horizon, and the sun’s rising was preceded by a glow of faint red, not extending far, a fine day succeeded, whether the sky were then overcast or clear; but if the first gleam of light appeared high above the horizon, behind clouds, and there was much red, not only near the sun, but visible on clouds even near the zenith, wind, if not rain, was sure to follow. Between the extremes of course there may be many varieties of appearance as well as of succeeding weather; but as I have found such signs followed by similar weather, in most parts of the world, and as I have often profited by them, with reference to making or shortening sail, &c.; I do not like to pass over this occasion for a hint to the inexperienced. I have always found that a high dawn (explained above) and a very red sky, foretold wind--usually a gale: that a low dawn and pale sunrise indicated fine weather; that the sun setting behind a bank of clouds, with a yellow look, was a sign of wind, if not rain, and that the sun setting in a clear horizon, glowing with red, was an unfailing indication of a coming fine day. I have already said (page 50), that hard-edged, oily-looking clouds, foretell, if they do not accompany wind, and that soft clouds--clouds which have a watery rather than an oily look--are signs of rain; and if ragged, or streaky, of wind also. Light foggy clouds, rising early, often called the ‘pride of the morning,’ are certain fore-runners of a fine day.
On the 8th of July the Beagle sailed from Maldonado, and anchored off Monte Video for a few days, waiting for the arrival of a packet from England. Directly the letters were received she returned to Maldonado.
On the 18th, my survey work being finished, and our help no longer required at Gorriti, we sailed to sound eastward in the latitude of the English Bank, and then returned to make a few arrangements with Lieutenant Wickham, and obtain observations for the chronometers, previous to making an excursion towards the south.
On the 24th we sailed to Cape San Antonio, and thence along the coast, close by Cape Corrientes, and skirting the San Blas banks, till we anchored off the river Negro. There we found the Paz and Liebre just returned from their examination of those intricacies which surround the ports between Blanco Bay and San Blas. The Liebre came out to meet us with a satisfactory report of progress, as well as health; and, at her return, Mr. Darwin took the opportunity of going into the river, with the view of crossing overland to Buenos Ayres, by way of Argentina: after which, he proposed to make a long excursion from Buenos Ayres into the interior, while the Beagle would be employed in surveying operations along sea-coasts uninteresting to him. We then got under sail and began our next employment, which was sounding about the outer banks off San Blas and Union Bays, and examining those parts of Ports San Antonio and San José which the Paz and Liebre had been prevented doing by wind and sea; besides which, I wished to see them myself, for many reasons, more closely than hitherto. The accumulation of banks about San Blas, and near, though southward of the river Colorado, is an object of interest when viewed in connection with the present position of the mouth of that long, though not large, river, which traverses the continent from near Mendoza, and which may have contributed to their formation; at least, so think geologists. Be this as it may, there is now a mass of banks extending far to seaward, which make the coast from Blanco Bay to San Blas extremely dangerous; more particularly, as the adjoining shore is almost a dead flat, and so low, that in many parts it can only be seen when the observer is among, or upon, the shoals. The space between Union Bay and San Blas was very appropriately named by the Spaniards Bahia Anegada (dried up bay), because it is so shallow, and the inner parts are rather drowned land than actual water, being only covered at half tide. Falkner says (p. 77), that a Spanish vessel was lost in this bay, the crew of which “saved themselves in one of the boats, and sailing up the river arrived at Mendoza.” Whether this ship was called ‘Los Cesares’ I am not aware, but as there is an islet in the ‘Bahia Anegada’ named in the old Spanish charts, ‘Isla de los Cesares,’ I suspect that such was the fact, and incline to connect this story with the many rumours of a settlement, ‘de los Cesares,’ somewhere in the interior of Patagonia. Falkner says, that “the crew saved themselves in one of the boats;”[10] but there were few Spanish vessels about that coast in the early part of the eighteenth century whose whole crew could have been saved in one of their boats.[11] If the remainder had formed even a temporary encampment about San Blas, or near the river Negro, it would have been described, with much exaggeration, by Indians of the west, as well as by those of the East country. A few men might have been admitted into a tribe of Indians who improved their habits and dwellings, so far as to have given rise to the curious reports so much circulated in South America, during the last century and even in this--of a colony of white people, with houses and gardens, in the interior of the continent, somewhere about the latitude of forty degrees; according to some between two ranges of the Cordillera; others said it was in the plains; but all appeared to think there was no doubt of the existence of such a settlement.
In Villarino’s Diary of his Exploration of Anegada Bay, I find that he was much assisted by horses and mules, which he carried on board his vessels, and landed as often as he had occasion to make a journey by land. At the river Negro I heard that some of these animals became so tame, and accustomed to landing and embarkation, that they would leap quietly into or out of the boats, when required.[12]
On the 19th of August, we anchored near the bar of the Negro, to meet the Paz and Liebre, take our officers and men on board, and pay Mr. Harris the money to which he was entitled, not only by contract, but by the uniform attention, activity, and thorough kindness, which he and his partner had shown to their temporary companions; by their knowledge as pilots, and by the useful information which they had readily given, to the full extent of their abilities. The complete success of that enterprize was greatly owing to the conduct of those two worthy men. Before dark all was settled, our party was safely on board; we quitted Harris and Roberts, with their useful little craft, mutually satisfied; and made sail for Blanco Bay, where there was still work to be done; intending to add to our already numerous soundings, while following the seaward edges of the banks.
On the 24th, we moored off the Wells, in Port Belgrano.
Next day, Lieutenant Sulivan went with a party to explore the furthest extreme of the inlet, while others were occupied, as usual, in the various duties always necessary on board a ship, in addition to those of a survey.
Mr. Darwin was at Argentina, and hearing of our arrival, rode to the Wells. He had met General Rosas on the Colorado, who treated him very kindly; and he was enjoying his shore-roving without any annoyance, the old major being no longer afraid of a ‘naturalista.’
On the 7th of September, we finally left Blanco Bay;[13] but again sounded along the dangerous banks of Anegada Bay, determined to do our utmost to prevent vessels from getting ashore there in future, as many have done already, especially during the blockade of Buenos Ayres, when several prizes, which had been taken from the Brazilians, were wrecked and totally lost.
In these surveying trips along-shore we always anchored when we could, in order to preserve our station and connect triangles; but, of course, we were often obliged to weigh again at short notice, during the night; therefore every preparation was made for any change of wind or weather, and a careful look-out always kept upon the deep-sea lead (invariably attended throughout the night), as well as upon the sympiesometer, the sky, and the water. I mention the deep-sea lead particularly, because however shallow the water may be, mistakes are often made with the hand-lead, especially at night, when a tide or current is running, in consequence of the lead being drifted by the action of the water upon it and the line, and deceiving even a moderate leadsman; who sometimes thinks the water much deeper than it really is--sometimes the reverse; and never can tell exactly, under such circumstances, how a ship is moving over the ground, or whether she is dragging her anchors.
Off Starve Island we were obliged to weigh in a hurry, one night, owing to a gale coming on from the south-east, and during the 10th and 11th, we carried a press of sail, to get off the land; the wind then drew round by the south, and a succession of baffling weather ensued, which prevented our doing any thing on the coast, and also hindered our reaching the Plata until the 16th, on which day we ran up to Monte Video, and anchored.
On the 18th we weighed, hearing that H.M.S. Snake had brought stores and letters for us, and was at Maldonado, but had hardly lost sight of the town, when the Snake hove in sight. Knowing her to be one of the new build, I altered course, to sail a few miles with her, and see how much she would beat us; but, to my surprize, she gained on us but little while running free with a fresh breeze, just carrying top-mast studding-sails; and I was afterwards told by her officers, that though she sailed uncommonly well on a wind, and worked to windward wonderfully, she did nothing remarkable with a flowing sheet. I did not like her upper works; they ‘tumbled home’ too much (like some old French corvettes); narrowing her upper deck, giving less spread to the rigging, and offering a bad form to the stroke of a heavy sea, whether when plunging her bow into it, or receiving it a-beam. However good such a form may be for large ships, which carry two or three tier of guns, I cannot think it advantageous for flush-decked vessels or small frigates, and am quite certain that it is bad for boats. I here allude particularly to that ‘tumbling home’ of the upper works, which some persons approved of a few years ago. This is not the place, however, for a discussion upon naval architecture (even if I were qualified to deal with the subject, which assuredly I am not); but I cannot pass over an opportunity of adding my mite of praise to the genius and moral courage of Sir William Symonds and Captain Hayes, who, undeterred by opposition, and difficulties of every description, have succeeded in infusing (if the metaphor may be allowed) so large a portion of Arab blood into the somewhat heavy, though stalwart coursers of our native breed. Amidst the natural contention of eager candidates for an honourable position, to which they have been accustomed to aspire, and for which some are doubtless admirably qualified, it is not surprising that due credit has not always been given to that originality and justifiable daring, of which the merits are attested by the Vanguard and Inconstant. Neither has it always been recollected, however men may have differed in their opinions of this or that individual, as a naval architect, that the two best ships built of late years were constructed by naval officers, self-educated chiefly during the practice of their profession. I am quite aware, that some of those eminent architects who have constructed good ships since 1810--Sir Robert Seppings, Professor Inman, Mr. Roberts, and Mr. Fincham, were very much restricted as to dimensions allowed with respect to guns to be carried; and that, therefore, no one can pretend to say what degree of excellence the ships might have attained, had their architects been unshackled; but taking things as they are--not as they might have been--to Symonds and Hayes (if not chiefly to the former) belongs the merit of having improved our navy materially. We are so apt to forget, during the heat of controversy, that even an approach to perfection is unattainable, and the utmost any one can hope for is to have fewer faults than his rivals--that we should not hastily condemn, in any case, only because we can detect deficiencies or errors.
Many persons have remarked, that notwithstanding all the competition, all the trials of sailing, and all the reported improvements, which have taken place since the peace, our fastest ships have not excelled some of those built by France, England, or other countries, during the war. My own knowledge of those ships is only derived from the descriptions of persons who sailed in or chased them: but the conclusion I am led to draw from their accounts is that, with few exceptions,[14] those ships were very slightly built, often of unseasoned timber, and that their rapid rate of sailing only lasted so long as their frames would yield to the fluid, and were not water-sodden. Recently launched, light, and elastic, confined by few beams, knees, or riders, held together by trunnions more than by metal, and intended only to sail swiftly--for a short existence--those greyhound vessels were as different in their construction from the solid, heavy, durable ships of this day, as a light, active youth is from a well-set man trained to labour.
A man-of-war requires strength, solidity, capacity; great buoyancy for supporting her heavy metal, durability, and tenacity; besides easiness as a sea-boat, and superiority of sailing. Vessels may easily be built to excel in any of these qualifications; but to excel in all is the climax, only to be obtained by genius, aided by extraordinary study and experience.
After running a few miles with the Snake, and finding that she steered towards Buenos Ayres, we altered our course to resume our easterly route, and early next morning were anchored alongside the Adventure.
As it was evident that another month must elapse before the schooner would be ready for her work, notwithstanding the zealous exertions of Lieut. Wickham and his crew, I decided to finish myself the survey, which I had intended he should begin with, namely, of the south shore of the Plata and a reported bank off Cape Corrientes--and defer the second visit to Tierra del Fuego until December or January. Accordingly, the Beagle sailed on the 23d, and after a close examination of Cape San Antonio and the great mud-bank, called Tuyu, which lies within it, we went to the neighbourhood of Cape Corrientes, and there looked about and sounded in every direction, but could find no shoal. We then returned to the river, and sounded Sanborombon Bay, laying its shores down on the chart as accurately as we could, considering that the water was every where so shoal, that even a boat could not get within half a mile of the land, except at particular times, for which we could not wait. The distance at which the Beagle was obliged to keep, varied from four miles to three (seldom less), and then she was sailing in about a foot more water than she drew.[15]
On the 6th of October we returned to Maldonado; to prepare for a long excursion southward, and to hasten the equipment of the Adventure. By the 19th she was almost ready, so we weighed in company, ran up the river to water, and on the 21st moored off Monte Video, to take in our final supplies previous to quitting the River Plata for the last time. Here, to my surprise, I found people talking about the English having taken possession of the island of Gorriti, and built houses upon it. This, I knew, must in some way have arisen out of the temporary encampment of the Adventure’s crew; and enquiring further, I found that columns of the Monte Video newspapers had been filled with discussions on the subject.[16] The local authorities at Maldonado having been told (incorrectly) that the English had hoisted British colours upon the island--had repaired several old buildings--and had erected a house with glass windows, for the commanding officer’s residence--became alarmed; and as stories seldom lose by repetition, the good people of Monte Video were soon in commotion. However, the affair was easily explained; but not without many a laugh at the absurdity of my little observatory (made of ninety small pieces of wood, so as to be stowed in a boat), having ‘loomed’ so large. Had our colours ever been displayed on shore, there might have been some foundation for their alarm; but it so happened that the only flag that was on the island, at any time while our party was there, was an old Monte Video (Banda Oriental) ensign, which belonged to the schooner when I bought her from Mr. Low. This incident, trifling as it is, may be worth notice, as showing how necessary it is to be more circumspect and explanatory in every dealing with a small State, than in similar transactions with the Authorities of old established governments.
The month of November was passed at Monte Video: laying down chart-work, computing observations, and writing; procuring and stowing provisions; painting the vessels outside and blacking their rigging; and occasionally giving the crews leave to go ashore. Mr. Darwin returned at the end of the month; and the first week in December both vessels sailed from the river: but before I go on with them to Tierra del Fuego and the Falklands, some pages shall be devoted to the proceedings of our enterprizing and hard-working labourers, who were employed so zealously during twelve months without intermission, in the little vessels Paz and Liebre.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The German told me, among other things, that he had collected rabbit-skins at his leisure hours, and had made, at different times, above two hundred dollars by them.
[2] It was a positive order on board the Beagle, that no one should make any excursion, in such places, alone.
[3] Excepting water, of which we only carried six weeks.
[4] Falklands and Tierra del Fuego.
[5] Vol. 1., p. 382.
[6] Bougainville says, “D’autres ossemens enormes, placés bien avant dans les terres, et que la fureur des flots n’a jamais été capable de porter si loin, prouvent que la mer a baissé, ou que les terres se sont elevées.”--Vol. I., pp. 112-113.
[7] Or port, as it has been called, though improperly, because it is at times almost blocked up by a bar.
[8] They were in Port San Antonio.
[9] Provided that the Commander-in-Chief approved of his doing so--a sanction which I had no doubt of his receiving.
[10] “In the year 1734, or thereabouts (within how many years after or before that time?), the masts and part of the hulk were seen,” (Falkner, p. 77.) The so-called ‘Isla de los Cesares’ is closely attached to, if not a part of the main land at the west side of Anegada Bay.
[11] Reports of the Cesares began to be circulated in the early part of the eighteenth century.
[12] Viedma and other Spaniards were similarly assisted in their expeditions.
[13] Mr. Darwin had previously departed on his road to Buenos Ayres.
[14] The Malta (Guillaume Tell), Norge, and a few others, were splendid exceptions, but even in the construction of those ships far less iron and copper were used than is now customary in vessels of their class. By substituting so much metal in place of wood, for knees, braces, and bolts, solidity, strength, and capacity are acquired in modern ships at the expense, in most instances, of elasticity, and swift sailing.
[15] The Beagle’s draught of water was eleven feet and a half forward, and thirteen feet aft, when in ordinary loaded trim.
[16] “Monte Video, Octubre 22 de 1833.
“El infrascripto Ministro Secretario de Estado en el departamento de Relaciones Exteriores, tiene órden del Gobierno para dirigirse al Sr. Cónsul General de S.M.B. y manifestarle, que á consecuencia de varios sucesos que han tenido lugar en la Isla de Gorriti, donde se halla la tripulacion de la Escuna de S.M. Adventure, los cuales constan de los documentos que en copia autorizada se acompañan; y deseoso el Gobierno de satisfacer la ansiedad publica que han producido aquellos sucesos, y quitar todo pretexto de interpretaciones, espera que el Sr. Cónsul tendrá á bien manifestarle los motivos que dieron mérito á que los individuos pertenecientes á aquel Buque pasasen á la Isla, como igualmente las causales de su permanencia en ella.
“El Ministro que subscribe reitera al Sr. Cónsul General de S.M.B. los sentimientos de su mayor consideracion y aprecio.
(Firmado) “FRANCISCO LLAMBI.”
“Monte Video, Octubre 28 de 1803.
“El abajo firmado Cónsul General de S.M.B. cerca de la República Oriental del Uruguay ha tenido el honor de transmitir al Sr. Fitz-Roy, comandante de la barca descubridora de S.M.B. Beagle, la comunicacion y copias inclusas que S. E. el Sr. D. Francisco Llambi, Ministro Secretario de Negocios Extrangeros le hizó el honor de dirigirle en 22 del corriente; y el infrascripto se halla autorizado para decir que ni el 3 de Octubre, de 1833, ni otro dia alguno del presente año se ha enarbolado o desplegado en la Isla de Gorriti la Bandera de la nacion Britanica. El 3 de Octubre de 1833, y muchos días anteriores, la de este Estado fuè izada como un señal para D. Francisco Aguilar, avisándole que se iva á embiar un bote en busca de carne y comestibles. La casa de madera con vidriera que se dice ser habitada por el comandante, es un observatorio portatil hecho en Inglaterra, que ahora se halla en la Isla de Ratas de este Puerto; y ninguno de los edificios de la Isla de Gorriti, ha sido reparado por persona alguna bajo las órdenes del Comandante Fitz-Roy: lo que el abajo firmado comunica á S. E. saludándole con su particular consideracion y aprecio.
(Firmado) “TOMAS SAMUEL HOOD.”