This fox, more curious or more
scientific, but less wise, than the generality of his brethren, is
now mounted in the museum of the Zoological Society.
We stayed three days in this harbour, on one of which Captain Fitz
Roy, with a party, attempted to ascend to the summit of San Pedro.
The woods here had rather a different appearance from those on the
northern part of the island. The rock, also, being micaceous slate,
there was no beach, but the steep sides dipped directly beneath the
water. The general aspect in consequence was more like that of
Tierra del Fuego than of Chiloe. In vain we tried to gain the
summit: the forest was so impenetrable, that no one who has not
beheld it can imagine so entangled a mass of dying and dead trunks.
I am sure that often, for more than ten minutes together, our feet
never touched the ground, and we were frequently ten or fifteen
feet above it, so that the seamen as a joke called out the
soundings. At other times we crept one after another, on our hands
and knees, under the rotten trunks. In the lower part of the
mountain, noble trees of the Winter's Bark, and a laurel like the
sassafras with fragrant leaves, and others, the names of which I do
not know, were matted together by a trailing bamboo or cane.
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