We grew well acquainted with Churruca, as we were detained there for five days; Saturday through the overhauling of the engine; Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday by bad weather; of Wednesday more anon. The position was not without a certain eeriness: we lay in this remote niche in the mountains, while the storm raged in the channel without and in the peaks above; at night, after turning in, the gale could be heard tearing down from above in each direction in turn, and the vessel’s chain rattling over the stony bottom as she swung round to meet it. The heavy rain turned every cliff-face into a multitude of waterfalls, which vanished at times into the air as a gust of wind caught the jet of water and converted it into a cloud of spray. Although the weather prevented our venturing outside, it was quite possible to explore the port by means of the ship’s boats. It proved not unlike Angosto, but on a larger and more complicated scale. Beyond our inner anchorage, although invisible from it, was a further extension known as the Lobo Arm, and there were also other small creeks and inlets. Even the prosaic Sailing Directions venture on the statement that the scenery at Port Churruca is “scarcely surpassed,” and one of the fiords must be described, although the attempt seems almost profane. In its narrow portion it was about a mile in length and from 100 to 200 yards in width; the sheer cliffs on either hand were clothed to the height of many hundreds of feet with various forms of fern and most brilliant moss. Above this belt of colour was bleak crag, and higher again the snow-line. The gorge ended in a precipice, above which was a mountain-peak; a glacier descending from above had been arrested in its descent by the precipice and now stood above it, forming part of it, a sheer wall of ice and snow as if cut off by a giant knife. There was little life to be seen, but an occasional gleam was caught from the white breast of a sea-bird against the dark setting of the ravine. In one part, high up on the cliff, where the wind was deflected by a piece of overhanging rock, was a little colony of nests; the mother birds and young broods sat on the edge in perfect shelter, even when to venture off it was to be beaten down on to the surface of the water by the strength of the wind. Some of our party visited the fiord on a second occasion to try to obtain photographs; it was blowing at the time a severe gale, and the effect was magical. The squalls, known as “williwaws,” rushed down the ravine in such force that the powerful little launch was brought to a standstill. They lashed the water into waves, and then turned the foaming crests into spray, till the whole surface presented the aspect of a fiercely boiling cauldron, through which glimpses could be caught from time to time of the dark cliffs above.