Under ordinary circumstances, the darkness would have made it difficult for them to proceed. But, oddly enough, the very thing which forces them to continue their retreat assists them in making it good, the fires on either side being like so many beacon-lights, enabling them to hold a course in mid-water. Thus guided, they run on as between two rows of street lamps, fortunately so far from either that the spread sail escapes being illumined by them. Fortunately, also, on reaching the next narrow, where it would be otherwise seen, there is a mist over the water. Screened by this, they succeed in passing through it unperceived, and enter Darwin Sound just as day is breaking. Here neither fires nor smokes are observed, a proof that they have passed out of the territory of the tribe which had attacked them.
Still, they do not yet seek the shore; the wind is too temptingly in their favour, and with sail up all day they run on into the north-west arm of the Beagle Channel, at length bringing to in a small cove on its southern side.
It is late afternoon when they make a landing; yet they have time to choose a camping-place ere darkness comes on. Not much choice is there, the only available spot being at the inner end of the cove. There a niche in the rocky beach forms a sort of natural boat-dock, large enough to admit the gig to moorings. And on the shore adjacent is the only patch of bare ground visible; at all other points the trees grow to the water’s edge, with overhanging branches.
Confident now that their late pursuers have been shaken off, they determine on making a stay here of at least a day or two. After this long spell of laborious work, with the excitement which accompanied it, they greatly need rest. Besides, all are now very hungry, having had no opportunity of cooking aught since they left the landing-place on the isle.
Where they are now there is no difficulty about fire, fuel being plentiful all about. And while Caesar is preparing the repast, the others transform the boat-sail into a tent, by setting up the oars, trestle-fashion, and resting the mast on them as a ridge-pole.
Having satisfied the cravings of appetite, and completed their arrangements for passing the night, it still lacks an hour of sunset, and with nothing better to be done, they sit by the fire and contemplate the landscape, at which hitherto they have but glanced. A remarkable landscape it is—picturesque beyond description, and altogether unlike the idea generally entertained of Fuegian scenery. That portion of it which an artist would term the “foreground” is the cove itself, which is somewhat like the shoe of a mule—running about a hundred yards into the land, while less than fifty feet across the mouth. Its shores, rising abruptly from the beach, are wooded with a thick forest, which covers the steep sides of the encircling hills as far as can be seen, and to the water’s edge. The trees, tall and grand, are of three kinds, almost peculiar to Tierra del Fuego. One is a true beech; another, as much birch as beech; the third, an aromatic evergreen of world-wide celebrity—the “Winter’s-bark.” (Note 2.) But there is also a growth of buried underwood, consisting of arbutus, barberry, fuchsias, flowering currants, and a singular fern, also occurring in the island of Juan Fernandez, and resembling the zamia of Australia.
The sea-arm on which the cove opens is but little over a mile in width, the shore on its farther side being a sheer cliff, rising hundreds of feet above the water, and indented here and there by deep gorges with thickly-wooded sides. Above the cliff’s crest the slope continues on upward to a mountain ridge of many peaks, one of them a grand cone towering thousands of feet above all the others. That is Mount Darwin, wrapped in a mantle of never-melting snow. Along the intermediate space between the cliff’s crest and the snow-line is a belt of woodland, intersected by what might be taken for streams of water, were it not for their colour. But they are too blue, too noiseless, to be water. Yet, in a way, they are water, for they are glaciers, some of them abutting upon the sea-arm, and filling up the gorges that open upon it with façades as precipitous as that of the cliff itself. There are streams of water also which proceed from the melting of the snow above; cataracts that spout out from the wooded sides of the ravines, their glistening sheen vividly conspicuous amid the greenery of the trees. Two of these curving jets, projected from walls of verdure on opposite sides of a gorge, meet midway, and mingling, fall thence perpendicularly down, changing, long ere they reach the water below, to a column of white spray.
Such is the magnificent panorama spread before the eyes of our castaways, who, despite their forlorn lot, cannot help regarding it with wonder and admiration. Nor is their wonder diminished by what they see and hear close at hand. Little did they expect to find parrots and humming-birds in that high southern latitude; yet a flock of the former chatter above their heads, feeding on the berries of the Winter’s-bark; while numbers of the latter are seen, flitting to and fro, or poised on whirring wings before the bell-shaped blossoms of the fuchsias. (Note 3.) From the deeper recesses of the wood at intervals comes a loud, cackling cry, resembling the laugh of an idiot. It is the call-note of the black woodpecker. And, as if in response to it, a kingfisher, perched on the limb of a dead tree by the beach, now and then utters its shrill, ear-piercing scream.
Other fishing-birds of different species fly hither and thither over the water, now quite tranquil, the wind having died away.
A flock of white pelicans, in pursuit of finny prey, swim about the cove, their eyes looking into the depths, their long pick-axe beaks held ready for a plunge. Then, as a fish is sighted underneath, down go head and neck in a quick dart, soon to be drawn up with the victim writhing between the tips of the mandibles. But the prey is not secured yet. On each pelican attends a number of predatory gulls, wheeling over it in flight, and watching its every movement with a foregone and well-studied intent. For as soon as the fish is brought up, they swoop at it from all points with wild screams and flapping wings; and as the pelican cannot swallow the fish without first tossing it upward, the toss often proves fatal to its purpose. The prey let go, instead of falling back into the water, or down the pouch-like gullet held agape for it, is caught by one or more of the gulls, and those greedy birds continue the fight among themselves, leaving the pelican they have robbed to go diving again.