About an hour before sundown, having stowed our water-casks, we began getting under way, and were not a little while about it; for we were in thirty fathoms water, and in one of the gusts which came from off shore had let go our other bow anchor; and as the southerly wind draws round the mountains and comes off in uncertain flaws, we were continually swinging round, and had thus got a very foul hawse.  We hove in upon our chain, and after stoppering and unshackling it again and again, and hoisting and hauling down sail, we at length tripped our anchor and stood out to sea.  It was bright starlight when we were clear of the bay, and the lofty island lay behind us in its still beauty, and I gave a parting look and bade farewell to the most romantic spot of earth that my eyes had ever seen.  I did then, and have ever since, felt an attachment for that island together peculiar.  It was partly, no doubt, from its having been the first land that I had seen since leaving home, and still more from the associations which every one has connected with it in his childhood from reading Robinson Crusoe.  To this I may add the height and romantic outline of its mountains, the beauty and freshness of its verdure and the extreme fertility of its soil, and its solitary position in the midst of the wide expanse of the South Pacific, as all concurring to give it its charm.

When thoughts of this place have occurred to me at different times, I have endeavored to recall more particulars with regard to it.  It is situated in about 33 30’ S., and is distant a little more than three hundred miles from Valparaiso, on the coast of Chili, which is in the same latitude.  It is about fifteen miles in length and five in breadth.  The harbor in which we anchored (called by Lord Anson Cumberland Bay) is the only one in the island, two small bights of land on each side of the main bay (sometimes dignified by the name of bays) being little more than landing-places for boats.  The best anchorage is at the western side of the harbor, where we lay at about three cables’ lengths from the shore, in a little more than thirty fathoms water.  This harbor is open to the N. N. E., and in fact nearly from N. to E.; but the only dangerous winds being the southwest, on which side are the highest mountains, it is considered safe.  The most remarkable thing, perhaps, about it is the fish with which it abounds.  Two of our crew, who remained on board, caught in a short time enough to last us for several days, and one of the men, who was a Marblehead man, said that he never saw or heard of such an abundance.  There were cod, bream, silver-fish, and other kinds, whose names they did not know, or which I have forgotten.

There is an abundance of the best of water upon the island, small streams running through every valley, and leaping down from the sides of the hills.  One stream of considerable size flows through the centre of the lawn upon which the houses are built, and furnishes an easy and abundant supply to the inhabitants.  This, by means of a short wooden aqueduct, was brought quite down to our boats.  The convicts had also built something in the way of a breakwater, and were to build a landing-place for boats and goods, after which the Chilian government intended to lay port charges.