At Port Henry, on the southern side of the entrance to the channel, we anchored several times. The scenery here is very grand. A clay-slate rock enters largely into the formation of the hills, its highly inclined strata forming jagged peaks and ridges of great height; while the low-lying rock about the coast is a friable syenite traversed with dikes of greenstone. Immediately to the south of our anchorage was a lofty ridge of clay-slate hills, terminating above in a multitude of vertical columns of rock, which from our position on board reminded us of a cluster of organ pipes, and suggested the name which now appears on the chart, of the "Organ-pipe Range." The aspect of the vegetation is also different from that of other ports in these waters, owing to the abundance of a veronica (V. decussata), which forms large glossy-green bushes, covered with a profusion of snow-white flowers, and so varies the otherwise monotonously green appearance of the beech forest.
Only one party of natives was here seen. They at first approached us very stealthily, paddling between the small islands off the eastern entrance of the harbour, and after the usual interchange of signals (waving of green boughs and caps), they came alongside. The boat was similar in construction and size to those already examined at Tom Bay and elsewhere; but we were now greatly struck at perceiving what a load it could accommodate; for there were in it sixteen natives and six dogs, besides provisions, weapons, and camp furniture. The party consisted of three men, five women, and eight children; and although they pulled only three oars (the women never taking part in this work), yet they managed to get along at a fair pace. On their arrival they were partially clad in seal skins; but in their eagerness to barter with our seamen, for knives, tobacco, and such treasures, they soon divested themselves of all artificial garb, and appeared in a state of nature. It was noticed that the males, who conducted the barter, compelled the women to give up their scanty covering. In the way of provisions, the boat contained a supply of large trumpet shells (Concholepas) in rush baskets, and the drinking water was carried in little bark buckets. They encamped near us for the night, but disappeared unaccountably the next day.
On our exploring the islets just mentioned, we found a large deserted encampment, in which we counted the remains of nine native huts. The refuse-heaps contained a good many seal and whale bones, besides echinoderms, limpet and trumpet shells, the latter shell here taking the place of the mussel. The trumpet shell (Concholepas) is found about the entrance of the Trinidad Channel, inhabiting rocky places immediately below low-water mark on the weather (i.e., the west) side of islets which are exposed to the heavy wash of the outer ocean. I have not seen the shell south of this latitude. The brown duck (Anas cristata) was here tolerably abundant, and with the ashy-headed Brent goose, and the two species of oyster-catcher, were in great request with our sportsmen, being the only edible birds worth mentioning in the western channels.
From Port Henry we shifted our base of operations to Wolsey Sound, the next inlet to the eastward. Here we anchored in an apparently well-sheltered cove, surrounded by lofty hills, but which we soon found to our cost to be a sort of aerial maelstrom. A strong westerly gale was blowing over the hill-tops, as we could see by the fast-flying clouds; while below at the anchorage we experienced a succession of fierce squalls (williwaws) from various quarters, with intervals of complete calm; so that the ship kept swinging to and fro, and circling round her anchors in a most erratic manner. Eventually one of the cables parted; but with the other, aided by steam, we managed to ride out the gale, and to thoroughly satisfy ourselves that Wolsey Sound was not one of the anchorages to be recommended to passing vessels. From the translation given in "Burney's Voyages," (vol. ii., p. 10), of the journal of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, who discovered the Trinidad Channel in the year 1580, it would appear that this is the same anchorage which his sailors named "Cache Diablo" (devil's box-on-the-ear), from the boisterous nature of the reception which they experienced.
On the east side of Wolsey Sound the rock of the mountain masses is for the most part a hard grey unfossiliferous limestone, irregularly stratified, but sometimes showing a dip of 10° or 15° to the westward. The most striking peculiarity of this rock consists in its solubility under the influence of both fresh and salt water, and it is this property that so often causes it to present a jagged honeycombed appearance. I noticed that in many places fresh-water streams, running over bare patches of this rock, had eaten away narrow gutter channels, and that in other places where a broad sheet of water flowed slowly—as from a turf bank—over a long gently-sloping table of rock, an incrustation of hard calcareous matter had been deposited, presenting a sort of "ripple-marked" appearance, and reminding one of the effect produced when a film of slowly-moving water is submitted to the influence of intense cold. When viewed from a distance, the limestone hills presented a whitish bleached appearance, which contrasted strangely with the sombre hues of the other greenstone and syenite hills. Of this description was "Silvertop," a lofty and conspicuous mountain on the south side of the Trinidad Channel, which was frequently used by our surveyors as a landmark.
The next port to the eastward is Rosario Bay. It was named by Sarmiento "Puerto de Nuestra Señora del Rosario." The rock formation here is limestone, and of the kind above mentioned, but the effects of frequent rain in washing away the more soluble parts of the rock were not only manifested by the honeycombed appearance of exposed surfaces, but also by the prevalence of caves of most irregular shape. Soon after we had anchored, Sub-Lieutenant Beresford and I, who had gone away in the skiff, were paddling around an islet with lofty and precipitous sides, when we noticed in the face of a bare rocky cliff a suspicious-looking dark opening, partly blocked up with stones, and situated about thirty feet above the sea level. We ran the boat alongside the rocks, and Beresford kept her from bumping while I climbed up the cliff to reconnoitre. On clearing away a heap of stones and rubbish, I laid bare a sort of niche in the rock, in which were portions of a human skeleton, the long bones lying together in a compact bundle, as if they had been so placed there when in the dried state. Not many yards from this crevice we soon discovered a small cave in the rock, and partly imbedded in the soil which formed its floor were a human jaw-bone and fragments of smaller bones. On excavating the floor of the cave we found it to consist of a stiff pasty greyish-white marl-clay, abounding in small shells, amongst which were species of the genera Patella, Fissurella, Chiton, and Calyptræa. On reaching a depth of about one foot, we came upon a nearly complete human skull of immature age, an otter skull with bones of the same, and the tooth of an Echinus. The human bones obtained were part of the skeletons of two individuals, one of whom must have been young, for the epiphyses of the long bones were not quite cemented to the shafts. I noticed that the skull presented a completely ossified frontal suture, although, from the nature of the teeth and alveoli, the person to whom it belonged could not have lived for more than twelve years or thereabouts. A tibia found in the first depôt bore marks of having been chopped by some sharp cutting instrument. From the fact of these bones being found interbedded with marine deposits, coupled with what we know of these islands having been elevated within recent times—I here refer to the evidence afforded by raised beaches and old high-water marks in the faces of cliffs—there is reason to believe that these bones were deposited in the cave at a time when it was under water, that they thus became surrounded by and imbedded in an ordinary marine shallow water deposit, and that eventually, on the island being elevated so as to raise the cave to its present position—thirty feet above sea level—the surface deposit was reinforced by the percolation of lime-charged water from the rock above, thus resulting in the formation of the marl-clay surface-layer above mentioned.
We made different attempts at dredging, but as the bottom was everywhere very rocky and the dredge in consequence continually getting foul, we were not successful in obtaining many objects of interest. However, among them there were specimens of a hydroid stony coral representing two species of the genus Labiopora—one of which Mr. Stuart Ridley of the British Museum has ascertained to be a species new to science—and a fine orange-coloured Astrophyton of a new species, recently described by Mr. F. J. Bell as A. lymani.
On the north side of the Trinidad Channel we stopped for a time at an anchorage near Cape Gamboa, which forms the north headland of the entrance. At Cape Gamboa the rock is a clay-slate showing distinct stratification, containing concretions of a whitish sandstone, and dipping to the N.E. at an angle of about 45°. To the eastward of Cape Gamboa is a limestone similar to that of the south shore. We did some dredging here on a smooth sandy bottom, the principal results of which were specimens of the Chimæra (Callorhynchus australis), and some curious Isopod Crustaceans of the genus Serolis. Another day (March 28th) when sounding across the entrance of the Channel, we made a heave of the trawl in thirty fathoms with most fruitful results, obtaining a magnificent specimen of the orange-coloured Astrophyton (A. lymani), several small rays and flat fish, large Actinia, a new Crustacean of the genus Arcturus, starfishes, and a Cephalopod Mollusc of the genus Rossia. On the evening of this day we were fortunate enough to witness a most beautiful sunset effect. As the sun disappeared from a western olive-tinted sky it seemed to be followed in its descent by several horizontal bands of delicate rose-tinted stratus clouds, which extended themselves in parallel lines over an arc of 45°, and finally tapered away into the most delicate threads of silvery light. In the east the dark purple-tinted clouds melted upwards into the grey gloom of approaching night, and foreshadowed to us the advent of another day of sunshine in this the only really fine and summer month in these western channels.
At the head of Francisco Bay—which was the name subsequently given to this anchorage—at the outlet of a small river, we one day made a very large "take" of fish in a somewhat singular manner. A trammel net had been placed across the mouth of the stream at high tide, and on the tide falling had been examined and found to contain a fair number of fish (mackerel). Some hours later two of our people were wading up the river, and on coming to a depression in its bed, which was at about the limit to which the tidal salt-water reached, they found an immense collection of half-dead and living mackerel in a pool, in which—the tide being then rather low—the water was almost entirely fresh. Here they caught, with their hands, fish enough to fill a boat, amounting to a gross weight of 4 cwt. The probable explanation of this lucky "take" seems to be that the fish entered the mouth of the river with the flood tide—as is their wont—and on attempting to retreat with the ebb found their return to the sea barred by our net, and instead of endeavouring to pass through the meshes preferred to move back into the brackish water of the river. Here, as the tide fell still further and laid bare banks of sand stretching across the stream, they became shut off altogether from the sea, and at dead low tide the flow of fresh water so predominated over the salt as to render them helplessly stupid, so that they fell an easy prey to our sailors.
On the shores of this bay I came across a magnificent Winter's bark tree, the largest which I have ever seen in the channels. Its smooth and almost cylindrical stem was nine feet in circumference, and ran up without branching to a height of thirty feet from the ground.