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Updated: June 2, 2025
We came on the river over a steep bank covered with high reeds, and as a party of natives were distinctly audible below, myself, Mr. Forsyth, and Mr. Bynoe led the way.
The whaleboat was soon seen hastening from the shore without the yawl, which made us suspect all was not right; and I was much distressed to hear that Mr. Fitzmaurice had been seriously wounded in the ankle by the discharge of a gun which had gone off within a few yards of it. Mr. Bynoe went on shore immediately to assist in bringing him on board.
We now wended our way towards a small eminence, through long grass, in most places interwoven with creepers, compelling us to tear our way through them in the ascent. In doing so Mr. Bynoe flushed a native; but before the rest of the party could come up, he had taken to flight. The simultaneous cries of "here's a native!" "where!" "here!"
Bynoe had been shooting all over the ground yesterday, and had neither seen nor heard anything to indicate their existence in this neighbourhood; though doubtless, from what followed, they had been very busily watching him all the time, and were probably only deterred from making an attack, by the alarm with which his destructive gun, dealing death to the birds, must have filled them.
The female never uses her voice, and the male only at these times; so that when the people hear this noise, they know that the two are together. The female, where the soil is sandy, deposits them together, and covers them up with sand; but where the ground is rocky she drops them indiscriminately in any hole: Mr. Bynoe found seven placed in a fissure.
After completing the survey of the southern and western portion of this harbour, we returned to the ship, where soon afterwards Captain Wickham also arrived, having found Patterson Bay to be a good port. It trended in south ten miles, and East-South-East the same distance, forming quite an inner haven, which was named after Mr. Bynoe.
The animals in most cases must have crawled, before dying, beneath and amongst the bushes. Mr. Bynoe informs me that during a former voyage he observed the same circumstance on the banks of the Rio Gallegos. I do not at all understand the reason of this, but I may observe, that the wounded guanacos at the St. Cruz invariably walked towards the river. At St.
Two miles further brought us into a fine open plain, over which two emus were going best pace; we therefore named it in their honour: while the valley to the southward was christened after the Beagle, and the ranges on either side bore the names of her former and present commander: those to the north-east and south-west were called, after the officers who accompanied me, Forsyth and Bynoe Ranges.
I was soon got down to the boat, lifted over the ship's side, and stretched on the poop cabin table, under the care of Mr. Bynoe, who on probing the wound gave me a cheering hope of its not proving fatal. The anxiety with which I watched his countenance, and listened to the words of life or death, the reader may imagine, but I cannot attempt to describe.
Bynoe saw one in Tierra del Fuego eating a cuttle-fish; and at Low's Harbour, another was killed in the act of carrying to its hole a large volute shell. What a succession of chances, or what changes of level must have been brought into play, thus to spread these small animals throughout this broken archipelago! It is said that some rapacious birds bring their prey alive to their nests.
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