feet high, which Captain Fitz Roy has called after Sir J. Banks, in
commemoration of his disastrous excursion, which proved fatal to two
men of his party, and nearly so to Dr. Solander. The snow-storm, which
was the cause of their misfortune, happened in the middle of January,
corresponding to our July, and in the latitude of Durham! I was anxious
to reach the summit of this mountain to collect alpine plants; for
flowers of any kind in the lower parts are few in number. We followed
the same water-course as on the previous day, till it dwindled away,
and we were then compelled to crawl blindly among the trees. These,
from the effects of the elevation and of the impetuous winds, were low,
thick and crooked. At length we reached that which from a distance
appeared like a carpet of fine green turf, but which, to our vexation,
turned out to be a compact mass of little beech-trees about four or
five feet high. They were as thick together as box in the border of a
garden, and we were obliged to struggle over the flat but treacherous
surface. After a little more trouble we gained the peat, and then the
bare slate rock.
A ridge connected this hill with another, distant some miles, and more
lofty, so that patches of snow were lying on it. As the day was not
far advanced, I determined to walk there and collect plants along the
road. It would have been very hard work, had it not been for a
well-beaten and straight path made by the guanacos; for these animals,
like sheep, always follow the same line. When we reached the hill we
found it the highest in the immediate neighbourhood, and the waters
flowed to the sea in opposite directions. We obtained a wide view over
the surrounding country: to the north a swampy moorland extended, but
to the south we had a scene of savage magnificence, well becoming
Tierra del Fuego. There was a degree of mysterious grandeur in
mountain behind mountain, with the deep intervening valleys, all
covered by one thick, dusky mass of forest. The atmosphere, likewise,
in this climate, where gale succeeds gale, with rain, hail, and sleet,
seems blacker than anywhere else. In the Strait of Magellan looking
due southward from Port Famine, the distant channels between the
mountains appeared from their gloominess to lead beyond the confines of
this world.
December 21st.--The Beagle got under way: and on the succeeding day,
favoured to an uncommon degree by a fine easterly breeze, we closed in
with the Barnevelts, and running past Cape Deceit with its stony peaks,
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