After spending a fortnight at Punta Arenas, restocking and refitting the ship, studying the surrounding regions, and accepting the warm hospitality of the citizens, we tipped our anchor at midnight of December 14th. We then set a course almost due south for Famine Reach. The little gunboat _Torro_, detailed by the Chilean officials, escorted us for several hours. The early part of the night was clear, which permitted us to see Sandy Point, with its glittering sheet-iron houses, for a long time. In the morning we were off the northern shore of Dawson Island, and from this time until we reached Ushuaia the weather was extremely unsettled. Cold rains, drizzling fogs, and sweeping squalls of wind were the normal weather conditions. At 2 o’clock in the afternoon we anchored in Hope Harbour, a snug little cove at the entrance of Magdalene Sound. We soon assembled in small companies and went ashore to explore as best we could the regions about. Everything here had for us a special interest, for, in a scientific sense, all was unexplored. There were glaciers, unsealed mountain heights, unknown water depths, and a savage wilderness of land, with gold in many streams. We should have enjoyed a prolonged stay here but the time for exploration in the more icy south was already far advanced, and since this was the principal part of our work we must hasten to it. The afternoon was given to examinations ashore. The narrow beaches were lined with mussel shells and in one place there were two bee-hive shaped frames of old Indian huts. There were a great many birds about, but we saw no large life. Where the land was so exposed that the vegetation was sheltered from the sudden squalls of winds, here called “williwaws,” there was a forest of large beech trees, and under these there was such a rank profusion of underbrush and moss that it was difficult, generally impossible, to force a passage. Near the open blast of the regular winds and the williwaws the land was mostly barren of trees but covered by a thick, velvety carpet of wet moss. It rained and snowed nearly all the time we were ashore, and we came back with our boots full of icy water, our clothing torn, soaked, and hanging to us like wet leather, and our heads bruised. We had made some notes and some studies, but altogether our personal discomforts were such that we were ready to throw science to the dogs. He who attempts to properly explore this region will find conditions to try his patience nearly as bad as at either pole.