Strait of Magalhaens the average height may be taken at three thousand feet; though there are some mountains which may be between six and seven thousand feet high.
By a reference to the chart it will be seen that about the parallel of 40° the coast begins to assume, and retains to its furthest extremity, a very different appearance from that which it exhibits to the northward, where the sea, which is kept at a distance from the Cordillera by a belt of comparatively low land for continuous intervals of some hundred miles, washes a long unbroken shore, affording neither shelter for vessels nor landing for boats; but, to the southward of that parallel, its waters reach to the very base of the great chain of the Andes, and, flowing as it were into the deep ravines that wind through its ramifications, form numerous channels, sounds, and gulfs, and, in many instances, insulate large portions of land. In fact, the whole of this space is fronted by large islands and extensive archipelagoes, of which the most conspicuous are the great island of Chilóe, Wellington Island, the Archipelago of Madre de Dios, Hanover Island, and Queen Adelaide Archipelago. The last forms the western entrance of the Strait on its north side. The land of Tres Montes, however, is an exception: it is a peninsula, and is the only part of the continent within the above limits that is exposed to the ocean's swell. It forms the northern part of the Gulf of Peñas, and is joined to the main by the narrow isthmus of Ofqui, over which the Indians, in travelling along the coast, carry their canoes, to avoid the extreme danger of passing round the peninsula. It was here that Byron and his shipwrecked companions crossed over with their Indian guides: but it is a route that is not much frequented; for this part of the coast is very thinly inhabited, and the trouble of pulling to pieces and reconstructing the canoes,[[216]] an operation absolutely necessary to be performed, is so great, that I imagine it is only done on occasions of importance. In this way the piraguas which conveyed the missionary voyagers to the Guaianeco Islands were transported
over the isthmus; the particulars of which are fully detailed in their journals.[[217]]
The river San Tadeo, although of small size, being navigable only for eleven miles, is the largest river of the coast south of the archipelago of Chilóe, and therefore merits a particular description. At seven miles from the mouth it is fed by two streams or torrents, the currents of which are so strong that a fast-pulling boat can hardly make way against it. One of these streams takes its rise in a mountainous range, over which perhaps the communicating road passes; and the other is the drain of an extensive glacier or plain of ice of fifteen miles in extent. The river falls into the Gulf of St. Estevan over a shallow bar, upon which there is scarcely two feet water, and at low tide is probably dry.
At the head of St. Estevan Gulf is St. Quintin Sound; both were examined and found to afford excellent anchorage, and they are both of easy access should a ship, passing up the coast, find herself upon a lee shore and not able to weather the land, as was the case with the ill-fated Wager.[[218]]
The Guaianeco islands form the southern head of the Gulf of Peñas; then follows Wellington Island, separated from the main by the Mesier Channel, which had not been previously explored, its mouth only being laid down in the charts, compiled from the information of Machado, a pilot who was sent in 1769 by the Viceroy of Peru to examine the coast from Chilóe to the Strait
of Magalhaens.[[219]] This channel is also noticed in one of the two missionary voyages above mentioned; but the object of these expeditions being for the purpose of converting the Indians to Christianity,[[220]] and not for the extension of geographical knowledge, little information of that nature could be obtained from their journal: the entrance of the Mesier, however, is described by them; and on one occasion they were obliged to take refuge in it for fifteen days.[[221]] With this exception I cannot find that it had ever been entered before our visit.
The length of the channel is one hundred and sixty miles, and it joins the Concepcion Strait behind the Madre de Dios archipelago, at the Brazo Ancho of Sarmiento. Lieutenant Skyring, who superintended this particular part of the survey, called the land which it insulates, Wellington Island; the seaward coast of which is fronted by several islands. Fallos Channel, which separates the Campaña and Wellington Islands, was examined, from its northern entrance, for thirty-three miles, and was conjectured, after communicating with the sea at Dynely Sound, to extend to the southward, and fall into the Gulf of Trinidad by one of the deep sounds which were noticed on the north shore.
About thirty miles within the Mesier Channel, from the northern extremity, the west side appears to be formed by a succession of large islands, many of which are separated by wide channels leading to the south-west, and probably communicating with the Fallos Channel. On the eastern shore the openings were found to be either narrow inlets or abruptly terminating sounds.
On both sides of the channel the coast is hilly, but not very high, and in many places there is much low and generally thickly wooded land. This character distinguishes the Mesier from other channels in these regions.