[20] Their day's journey is usually about four leagues when on a long march.
[21] Captain FitzRoy followed it for nearly 200 miles, and found it a very considerable river the whole way,—never fordable, according to the accounts he received. He must have been very near the lake when he found himself obliged to turn back.
[22] In 1670 Sir John Narborough passed six months at San Julian's; he also visited Port Desire, and took possession of it, with all due form, for his master, Charles II.—Anson was also at both places in 1741, and the account of his voyage contains views of that part of the coast, and of the harbour of San Julian's.
Narborough, who is very precise in his description of the country, gives an account of a geological fact, which is of some interest now-a-days. He says, "Going on shore on the north-west side of the harbour of San Julian's with thirty men, I travelled seven or eight miles over the hills, &c. On the tops of the hills and in the ground are very large oyster-shells; they lie in veins in the earth and in the firm rocks, and on the sides of the hills in the country; they are the biggest oyster-shells that ever I saw, some six, some seven inches broad, yet not one oyster is to be found in the harbour."
[23] The Choleechel is not now a single island, but is divided into two or three, by branches of the river which intersect it. These channels may have been formed since Vallarino's voyage.
[24] Fort Villariño in the map.
[25] The river was probably unusually low even for the season; for Villariño observes in this part of his journal, that it was nearly five months since they had had a rainy day.
[26] Nahuel-huapi signifies the Island of Tigers according to Falkner.