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Show 344 TRES MO!\'TES. Dec.)834. terested by finding, on a wild part of the coast, a bed made of grass beneath a ledge of rock. Close by it there had been a fire, and the man had used an axe. The fire, bed, and situation, showed the dexterity of an Indian ; but he could scarcely have been an Indian; for the race is in this part extinct, owing to the Catholic desire of making at one blow Christians and Slaves. I had at the time some misgivings (though they afterwards were proved to have been groundless) that the solitary man, who had made his bed on this wild spot, must have been some poor shipwrecked sailor, who, in trying to travel up the coast, had here lain himself down for his dreary night. DECEMBER 28TH.-The weather continued very bad, but it at last permitted us to proceed with the survey. The time hung heavy on our hands, as it always did when we were delayed from day to day by successive gales of wind. In the evening another harbour was discovered, where we anchored. Directly afterwards a man was seen waving his shirt; and a boat was sent which brought back two seamen. A party of six had run away from an American whaling vessel, and had landed a little to the southward in a boat, which was shortly afterwards knocked to pieces by the surf. They had now been wandering up and down the coast for fifteen months, without knowing which way to go, or where they were. What a singular piece of good fortune it was that this harbour was now discovered! Had it not been for this one chance, they might have wandered till they had grown old men, and at last have perished on this wild coast. Their sufferings had been very great, and one of their party had lost his life, by falling from the cliffs. They were sometimes obliged to separate in search of food, and this explained the bed of the solitary man. Considering what they had undergone, I think they had k~pt a very good reckoning of time; though they had lost four days, by making thi~ the 24th instead of the 28th. DECEMBER 30TH.-We anchored in a snug little cove at the foot of some high hills, near the northern extremity of Jan. 18:35. 'l'RES l\10:\l'l'ES. 345 Tres Montes. After breakfast the next morning, a party ascended one of these mountains, which had an altituue of 2400 feet. The scenery was remarkable. The chief part of the range was composed of grand, solid, abrupt masses of granite, which appeared as if they had been coeval with the beginning of the world. The granite is capped with slaty gneiss, and this in the lapse of ages has been worn into strange finger-shaped points. These two formations, thus differing in their outlines, agree in being almost destitute of vegetation. This barrenness had to our eyes a still stranger appearance, from our having been so long accustomed to the sight of an almost universal forest of dark green trees. I took much delight in examining the structure of these mountains. The complicated and lofty ranges bore a noble aspect of durability,-equally profitless, however, to man and to all other animals. Granite to the geologist is classic ground : from its wide-spread limits, and its beautiful and compact texture, few rocks have been more early recognised. Granite has given rise, perhaps, to more discussion concerning its origin than any other formation. We generally see it constitutinO' the fundamental rock, and, however formed, we b know it is the deepest layer in the crust of this globe, to which man has been able to penetrate. The limit of man's knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest, which is perhaps increased by its close neighbourhood to the realms of imagination. JANUARY 1sT, 1835.-The new year is ushered in, with the ceremonies proper to it in these regions. She lays out no false hopes; a heavy N. W. gale, with steady rain, bespeaks the rising year. Thank God, we are not desti~ed here to see the end of it, but hope then to be in the Pacific, where a blue sky tells one there is a heaven-a something beyond the clouds above our heads. The N. W. winds prevailing for the next four days, we only managed to cross a great bay, and then anch?re~ in another secure harbour. I accompanied the captam m a boat to the head of a deep creek. On the way the number |