Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/248

238 grow several kinds of Escallonia, Berberis, Lobelia, Hordeum, and Avena. During my short stay I gathered seventy distinct and highly interesting plants. The species of birds were few, and not beautiful; I killed a Strix, and several of the dark kind of Columba, which is very abundant.

Our course was then directed to the Gallipagos, lying under the Equator, in longitude 80 degrees west, which we pleasantly gained on the 9th of January, 1825, having kept our Christmas day in latitude 37 degrees south, longitude 84 degrees west, by feasting on the goat which Clark had given us, and drinking the health of our friends in England. The heat is by means so oppressive in the same latitude on the Pacific as the Atlantic Ocean, for though the difference, in the mercury is trifling, there is a cooling breeze which always renders the air agreeable. We passed along the east side of Chatham Island, which is mountainous, and apparently bare of vegetation; and went on shore the following day on James's Island, about, thirty-seven miles further west. The whole of the Gallipagos are mountainous and volcanic, with vestiges of many craters, covered with lava, but the hills do not seem to exceed 2,000 feet above the level of the sea. Their verdure is scanty, as compared with most tropical countries, owing, apparently, to the parched nature of the soil and the absence of springs of fresh water. The only spring I saw was flowing from a crevice in one of the craters; some of the trees attained a considerable size in the valleys, but they are not numerous, and with little variety of species. The birds, however, are abundant, and some of them exceedingly handsome, but so ignorant were they of man's devices that they suffered themselves to be killed with a stick, so that a gun was only needed when they sat high on the top of a tree or rock. Many of the smaller kinds perched on my hat, and even unconsciously settled on the gun (that instrument of their destruction) which I carried on my shoulder. During my visits to the island of two hours a day for three days I killed forty-five individuals of nineteen genera, all of which I skinned carefully, and had then the mortification of losing