Chap. X.]
HERMITE ISLAND.
301
1842
the Falklands, though it grows, not unfrequently, on the outlying islands. Winter's bark, now little used in our country, proved of great value to the boats' crews, when detached from Captain King's surveying ship, the Beagle. The wood of Berberis ilicifolia is of a bright gamboge yellow, and affords a clear and strong dye of that colour. Some of the large Sea-weeds of the Fuegian shores have been analysed by Dr. E. D. Thomson, and found to yield abundance of manna, besides a much larger proportion of iodine than the Algæ of the northern hemisphere.
"This sketch of the botany of a country long and undeservedly considered the most inhospitable, if not the most barren, in the world, may be concluded by the remark, that, however credible in themselves are the reports of voyagers, they ought in fairness to be considered in connexion with the impressions to which the previous events of their several voyages are likely to have given rise. For instance, we, who had lately explored a more boisterous ocean, and had visited incomparably bleaker coasts, could find charms in the wild woodland scenery, secluded bays, precipitous mountains, and interesting vegetation of Tierra del Fuego, which even its gales and snow-storms were insufficient to dispel; for, terrible as the war of elements here is, we were in a measure sheltered from its fury. Far different was the aspect the country must have worn in the eyes of Cook, Banks, and Solander! They had recently quitted the magnificent bay of