We weighed anchor about daybreak, and the 5th of June, my first day in the Channels, will ever remain as a bright spot in my memory. Wellington Island, which lay on our right, is over a hundred and fifty miles in length, a rough mountain range averaging apparently about three thousand feet in height, with a moderately uniform coast-line. On the other hand, the mainland presents a constantly varying outline, indented by numberless coves and several deep narrow sounds running far into the recesses of the Cordillera. In the intermediate channel crowds of islets, some rising to the size of mountains, some mere rocks peeping above the water, present an endless variety of form and outline. But what gives to the scenery a unique character is the wealth of vegetation that adorns this seemingly inclement region. From the water’s edge to a height which I estimated at fourteen hundred feet, the rugged slopes were covered with an unbroken mantle of evergreen trees and shrubs. Above that height the bare declivities were clothed with snow, mottled at first by projecting rocks, but evidently lying deep upon the higher ridges. I can find no language to give any impression of the marvellous variety of the scenes that followed in quick succession against the bright blue background of a cloudless sky, and lit up by a northern sun that illumined each new prospect as we advanced. At times one might have fancied one’s self on a great river in the interior of a continent, while a few minutes later, in the openings between the islands, the eye could range over miles of water to the mysterious recesses of the yet unexplored Cordillera of Patagonia, with occasional glimpses of snowy peaks at least twice the height of the summits near at hand. About two o’clock we reached the so-named English Narrows, where the only known navigable channel is scarcely a hundred yards in width between two islets bristling with rocks. The tide rushed through at the rate of a rapid river, and our captain displayed even more than his usual caution. Some ten men of the crew were posted astern with steering gear, in readiness to provide for the possible breakage of the chains from the steering-house. It seemed unlikely enough that such an accident should occur at that particular point, but there was no doubt that if it did a few seconds might send the ship upon the rocks.
THE ENGLISH NARROWS.
One of the advantages of a voyage through the Channels is that at all seasons the ship comes to anchor every night, and the traveller is not exposed to the mortification of passing the most beautiful scenes when he is unable to see them. When more thoroughly known, it is likely that among the numerous coves many more will be found to offer good anchorage; but few are now known, and the distance that can be run during the short winter days is not great. We were told that our halt for the night was to be at Eden Harbour, less than twenty miles south of the English Narrows, and to my great satisfaction we dropped anchor about 3.30 p.m., when there was still a full hour of daylight. Our good-natured captain put off dinner for an hour, and with all convenient speed I went ashore with Mr. H—— and two officers of the ship.
Eden Harbour deserves its name. A perfectly sheltered cove, with excellent holding-ground, is enclosed by steep forest-clad slopes, culminating to the north in a lofty conical hill easily recognized by seamen. The narrow fringe between the forest and the beach is covered with a luxuriant growth of ferns and shrubby plants, many of them covered in summer with brilliant flowers, blooming in a solitude rarely broken by the passage of man. After scrambling over the rocks on the beach, the first thing that struck us was the curious nature of the ground under our feet. The surface was crisp and tolerably hard, but each step caused an undulation that made one feel as if walking on a thick carpet laid over a mass of sponge. Striking a blow with the pointed end of my ice-axe, it at once pierced through the frozen crust, and sank to the hilt over four feet into the semifluid mass beneath, formed of half-decomposed remains of vegetation.
At every step plants of this region, never before seen, filled me with increasing excitement. Several were found with very tolerable fruit, and there were even some remains of the flowers of Desfontainea spinosa and Mitraria coccinea. The latter beautiful shrub appears to have been hitherto known only from Chiloe and the Chonos Archipelago. In those islands it is described as a tall climber straggling among the branches of trees. Here I found it somewhat stunted, growing four or five feet high, with the habit of a small fuchsia. Neither of these is a true antarctic species. Like many Chilian plants, they are peculiar and much-modified members of tribes whose chief home is in tropical America. Everything else that I saw was characteristically antarctic. Three small coniferous trees peculiar to this region; a large-flowered berberry, with leaves like those of a holly, growing six or eight feet high, still showing remains of the flower; and two species of Pernettya, with berries like those of a bilberry, and which replace our Vaccinia in the southern hemisphere, were among the new forms that greeted me.
VEGETATION OF EDEN HARBOUR.
A few minutes’ stumbling over fallen timber brought us to the edge of the forest, and it was soon seen that, even if time allowed, it would be no easy matter to penetrate into it. The chief and only large tree was the evergreen beech (Fagus betuloides of botanists). This has a thick trunk, commonly three or four feet in diameter, but nowhere, I believe, attains any great height. Forty feet appeared to me the outside limit attained by any that I saw here or elsewhere. But perhaps the most striking, and to me unexpected, feature in the vegetation was the abundance and luxuriance of the ferns that inhabit these coasts. From out of the stiff frozen crust under our feet a profusion of delicate filmy ferns (Hymenophylla) grew to an unaccustomed size, including several quite distinct species; while here and there clumps of the stiff fronds of Lomaria magellanica, a couple of feet in height, showed an extraordinary contrast in form and habit. As Sir Joseph Hooker long ago remarked, the regular rigid crown of fronds issuing from a thick rhizome, when seen from a little distance, remind one forcibly of a Zamia. It was to me even more surprising to find here in great abundance a representative of a genus of ferns especially characteristic of the tropical zone. The Gleichenia of these coasts differs sufficiently to deserve a separate specific name, but in general appearance is strikingly like that which I afterwards saw growing in equal abundance in Brazil.
This continent, with its thousands of miles of unbroken coast-line, and its mountain backbone stretching from the equator to Fuegia, has offered extraordinary facilities for the diffusion of varied types of vegetation. As I have already remarked, some species of antarctic origin travel northward, and some others, now confined to the equatorial Andes, are most probably modified descendants from the same parent stock; while a small number of tropical types, after undergoing more or less modification, have found their way to the extreme southern extremity of the continent.
By a vigorous use of my ice-axe, which is an excellent weapon for a botanist, I succeeded in uprooting a good many plants from the icy crust in which they grew; but the minutes slipped quickly by, daylight was fading in this sheltered spot, shut out from the north and west by steep hills, and too soon came the call to return to the ship. On the beach I picked up the carapace of a crab—bright red and beset with sharp protuberances—evidently freshly feasted on by some rapacious animal. The whole of the body and the shell of the under part as well as the claws had disappeared, leaving nothing but the carapace, which I presume had been found too hard and indigestible. Darwin informs us that the sea-otter of this region feeds largely on this or some allied species of crab.
A RED CRAB.