The refreshments to be got here are precarious, as they consist chiefly of wild fowl, and may probably never be found in such plenty as to supply the crew of a ship; and fish, so far as we can judge, are scarce.  Indeed the plenty of wild-fowl made us pay less attention to fishing.  Here are, however, plenty of muscles, not very large, but well tasted; and very good celery is to be met with on several of the low islets, and where the natives have their habitations.  The wild-fowl are geese, ducks, sea-pies, shags, and that kind of gull so often mentioned in this journal under the name of Port Egmont hen.  Here is a kind of duck, called by our people race-horses, on account of the great swiftness with which they run on the water; for they cannot fly, the wings being too short to support the body in the air.  This bird is at the Falkland Islands, as appears by Pernety’s Journal*.  The geese too are there, and seem to be very well described under the name of bustards.  They are much smaller than our English tame geese, but eat as well as any I ever tasted.  They have short black bills and yellow feet.  The gander is all white; the female is spotted black and white, or grey, with a large white spot on each wing.  Besides the bird above-mentioned, here are several other aquatic, and some land ones; but of the latter not many.

[* See Pernety’s Journal, p.244 and p.213.]

From the knowledge which the inhabitants seem to have of Europeans, we may suppose that they do not live here continually, but retire to the north during the winter.  I have often wondered that these people do not clothe themselves better, since Nature has certainly provided materials.  They might line their seal-skin cloaks with the skins and feathers of aquatic birds; they might make their cloaks larger, and employ the same skins for other parts of clothing, for I cannot suppose they are scarce with them.  They were ready enough to part with those they had to our people, which they hardly would have done, had they not known where to have got more.  In short, of all the nations I have seen, the Pecheras are the most wretched.  They are doomed to live in one of the most inhospitable climates in the world, without having sagacity enough to provide themselves with such conveniences as may render life in some measure more comfortable.

Barren as this country is, it abounds with a variety of unknown plants, and gave sufficient employment to Mr Forster and his party.  The tree, which produceth the winter’s bark; is found here in the woods, as is the holy-leaved barberry; and some other sorts, which I know not, but I believe are common in the straits of Magalhaens.  We found plenty of a berry, which we called the cranberry, because they are nearly of the same colour, size, and shape.  It grows on a bushy plant, has a bitterish taste, rather insipid; but may he eaten either raw or in tarts, and is used as food by the natives.

CHAPTER III.