"A broken series of wintry islands, called Terra del Fuego, from two or more volcanoes which vomit flames amidst the dreary wastes of ice. Terra del Fuego is divided by narrow straits into eleven islands of considerable size. In their zeal for Natural History, Sir Joseph Banks and Doctor Solander had nearly perished amid the snows of this horrible land; but they found a considerable variety of plants. The natives are of a middle stature, with broad flat faces, high cheeks, and flat noses, and they are clothed in the skins of seals. The villages consist of miserable huts in the form of a sugar loaf, and the only food seems to be shell-fish." The lack of common prudence, of common sense, exhibited by Captain Gardiner is astounding. Here was he, with a party whom he had beguiled to attend him, dropped in this barren country wrapped in snow and fog, without an interpreter, and consequently without the means of communication with the inhabitants should they come across them. From the moment that the sails of the _Ocean Queen_ disappeared behind the rocks on her way to double Cape Horn, the eye of no civilized man ever saw these brave sailors and missionaries alive. All that is known of them has been gathered from the papers subsequently found. Seven men in all, with four open boats, were left on the most inhospitable coast that could be found, where there is little food to be got, where vegetation is scarce. Their resolution was heroic, but the whole enterprise was madness. They soon found that the _Pioneer_ leaked. In several short voyages from island to island and from shore to shore they encountered numberless mishaps. The natives were by no means friendly, and as they approached their villages, brandished their weapons and drove them away. At other times the Fuegians simulated friendship, so as to get at the stores and plunder them. During a storm both of the dinghies were lost with all their contents, on which they relied for support for six months. Next they found that they had no gunpowder; it had been left inadvertently in the _Ocean Queen_, so that they had no means of shooting birds or other animals. Then their anchors and spare timber were carried away. As far as we can judge, they seem to have been curiously helpless persons. With clubs they might have killed the sea-elephants, whose flesh would have sustained them and their skins clothed them. Thus wore away the month of January, 1851, and not the first step had been taken towards acquiring the confidence of the natives. All the time had been spent in a struggle for the maintenance of their own lives. On February 1st the _Pioneer_ was shattered in a storm, and now they had only the _Speedwell_ to voyage in, a vessel whose name mocked their misery.