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After having been twice driven back by heavy southwestern gales, Her Majesty's ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, R.N., sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831.
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The neighbourhood of Porto Praya, veiwed from the sea, wears a desolate aspect. The volcanic fires of a past age, and the scorching heat of a tropical sun, have most places rendered the soil unfit for vegetation.
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In the morning we got under way, and stood out of the splendid harbour of Rio de Janeiro. In our passage to the Plata, we saw notyhing in particular, excepting on one day a great shoal of porpoise, many hundreds in numder.
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The Beagle sailed from Maldonado, and on August 3rd she arrived off the mouth of the Rio Negro.
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The Beagle arrived here on the 24th of August, and a week afterwards sailed for the Plata.
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Everything on this southern continent has been effected on a grand scale: the land, from Rio Plata to Tierra del Fuego, a distance of 1200 miles, has been raised in mass, within the period of the now existing sea shells.
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Having now finished with Patagonia and the Falkland Islands.
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On Jan. 15th we sailed from lows harbour, and three days later anchored a second tim in the Bay of S. Carlos in Chiloe.
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Feb. 20th.- This day is memorable in the annuals of Valdivia, for the most severe earthquakes experienced by the oldest in habitant.
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We entered the harbour of Conception. While the ship was beating up to the anchorage, I landed on the island of Quiriquina. The mayor-domo of the states quikly rode down to tell me the terrible news of the great earthquake of the 20th; "That not a house in Conception or Talcahuano (the port) was standing."
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This archipelago consists of ten principle islands, of which five exceed th eothers in size. They are situated under the Equator, and between five and six hundred miles westward of th coast of America.
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At daylight, Tahiti, an island which must for ever remain classical to the voyager in the South Sea, was in view. At a distance the appearance was not attractive.
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Early in the morning a light air carried us towards the entrance Port Jackson. Instead of bholding a verdant country, interspersed with fine houses, a straight line of yellowish cliff brought to our minds the coast of Patagonia.
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We arrived in view of the Keeling or Cocos Islands, situated in the India Ocean, and about six hundred miles distant from the coast of Sumatra.
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We sailed from Port Louis, and, calling at the Cape of Good Hope, on the 8th of July we arrived off St. Helena. This island, the forbidding aspect of which has been so often described, rises abruptly like a huge black castle from the ocean.
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On the 19th of July we reached Ascension.
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On the 2nd of October we made tthe shore, of England; and at Falmouth I left the Beagle, having lived on board the good little vessel nearly five years.
