Nearly In This Situation Some Charts Place A
Channel Leading Into The Straits Of Magalhaens, Under The Name Of Straits
Of Jelouzel.
At ten o'clock, being about a league and a half from the land,
we sounded, and found sixty fathoms water, a bottom of small stones and
shells.
The wind, which had been fresh at N. by W., began to abate, and at noon it
fell calm, when we observed in latitude 55 deg. 20' S., longitude made from
Cape Deseada 3 deg. 24' E. In this situation we were about three leagues from
the nearest shore, which was that of an island. This I named Gilbert Isle,
after my master. It is nearly of the same height with the rest of the
coast, and shews a surface composed of several peaked rocks unequally high.
A little to the S.E. of it are some smaller islands, and, without them,
breakers.
I have before observed that this is the most desolate coast I ever saw. It
seems entirely composed of rocky mountains without the least appearance of
vegetation. These mountains terminate in horrible precipices, whose craggy
summits spire up to a vast height, so that hardly any thing in nature can
appear with a more barren and savage aspect than the whole of this country.
The inland mountains were covered with snow, but those on the sea-coast
were not. We judged the former to belong to the main of Terra del Fuego,
and the latter to be islands, so ranged as apparently to form a coast.
After three hours calm we got a breeze at S.E. by E., and having made a
short trip to south, stood in for the land; the most advanced point of
which, that we had in sight, bore east, distant ten leagues. This is a
lofty promontory, lying E.S.E, nineteen leagues from Gilbert isle, and
situated in latitude 55 deg. 26' S, longitude 70 deg. 25' W. Viewed from the
situation we now were in, it terminated in two high towers; and, within
them, a hill shaped like a sugar-loaf. This wild rock, therefore, obtained
the name of York Minster. Two leagues to the westward of this head appeared
a large inlet, the west point of which we fetched in with by nine o'clock,
when we tacked in forty-one fathoms water, half a league from the shore; to
the westward of this inlet was another, with several islands lying in the
entrance.
During the night between the 19th and 20th we had little wind easterly,
which in the morning veered to N.E. and N.N.E., but it was too faint to be
of use; and at ten we had a calm, when we observed the ship to drive from
off the shore out to sea. We had made the same observation the day before.
This must have been occasioned by a current; and the melting of the snow
increasing, the inland waters will cause a stream to run out of most of
these inlets.
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