Patagonia Bookshelf

Two or three Patagonians came back to take a look at us and perhaps to see if anything was left that they could pick up. Various things were necessarily left, among them one of the houses and the coals. These we supposed the Chileans would secure after we had sailed.

Aboard the Ganges. About noon we took our last foot from the land. All its attractions had ceased when the hope of benefiting its inhabitants perished. The country now appears to me in its true character, a naked, barren, irreclaimable waste. A thin superficial layer of vegetable mould supports its coarse grass which has a seared appearance on account of the great lack of moisture. This want of humidity would render any extensive attempt at agriculture abortive, and if a kitchen garden were formed it must be constantly watered by hand. In its naturally arid state it does not even give nourishment to a single earth worm. The subsoil is reddish, half-indurated clay but which, at some feet distance from the surface, becomes less hard and of a slate colour, at least in the neighbourhood of the little creek north east of the Station. These qualities of the soil, want of rain and the almost incessant and tremendous winds forbid the growth of trees, and accordingly there is not a single one in the southeastern part of Patagonia, neither did we see one on our westward wanderings, though there are plenty at Port Famine and westward of it. There are a very few sloe bushes and a dwarf species of shambling lignum vitae is rather less scarce; towards the hills and Gregory Range a species of insipid cranberry is plentiful and the berries are also very plentiful. There are a few herbs among which the celery is most abundant. No clover or any other species of trefoil.

Wild duck and geese are plentiful in the neighbourhood of Oazy Harbour and ostriches [Darwin's rhea, Ed.] are not scarce. No freshwater fish near Cape Gregory. The only edible marine ones are the mussel and another bivalve which may sometimes be got at low water. The only wild quadrupeds we saw were the field mouse, the fox, the puma, the wild cat and the guanaco. The only domestic animals hares and dogs. Lizards appeared abundant. I do not take upon me to describe the animals or vegetables of the country, I only briefly allude to what I myself observed on the land and to the above should be added a few birds that were unknown to me, chiefly falcons, buzzards, hawks etc, also plover and jack snipe. There is no fresh water that can be depended upon within several miles of Cape Gregory, and all the fire wood might be consumed by a couple of families in a month.

Captain Gardiner succeeded in hiring the Mate's cabin for us: otherwise we must have slept in the half deck among the men and exposed to the smell of ammonia arising from the cargo of guano.