Amador ledger., 1908-08-07

atmospere that their outlines were
hardly visible. and their sidelights
piercing the semi-gloom gave them
the appearance of some huge, 'ogle
eyed goblin, just escaped from q
fairy book. As | said above, not a
sound could be heard, and the SIX
long, low, sneaky-looking, jet black
destroyers, daIting In among the
battleship column, only added to the
enchantment of the scene. The
battleship column was about three
miles long, and scarcely man was
visible throughout the entire fleet,
but suddenly the bugles began ito
sound the most dreaded OF all calls, -
"Revllee," and almost instantly the
decks are filled with blue uniformed
sailors, starting about their day.
duties. Upon the appearance of the
men on the TO castle, quarter deck
and along the superstructure, the
whole appearance of the ship is
changed. All is life and action,
where only moment before, silence
Teigned supreme. In my opinion, the
sight of the men about the decks is
what the trimmings are to hat, they
tone up its appearance, and "set it
of" to a remarkable extent. The
mountains on either side were snow
capped, and several glaciers were
visible in the nearby ravines, some
Of them extending almost to the
waters edge. The sides of the noun
tains were densely vegetated with
stubby trees and underground, and
rocks line the beach on either side.
The sight of the ships among the
wild savage surroundings was almost
overwhelming, and just at the time
when l was enjoying it to the utm lost,
crash, bang,-the "Lawrie" had
done another one of her characteristic
stunts-broken down. The starEoard
blower in the forward fire room had
smashed, aud our speed began to
diminish, and | will confess that
some of the mems expressions are
hardly presentable in print. But
this only proved a blessing in dis
guise, for as our speed diminished we
we're treated to another grand sight,
seeing the battleships 60 by although
as | said we didn't exactly like the
circumstances. But when Just abreast
of the Glacier, the last ship in the
column, we were ready to go ahead
again, so Eve put on a lite extra
speed and caught up with the head of
the column about p. M, but there
was a slight fog, and characteristic
Magellan squall had just "broken, ;"
so most of the ships were not visible.
We parted company with the battle
ships about p. M, they keeping on
through the Straits proper, while we
entered Smythe channel and continued
our course up among the numerous
islands to the north and west of the
Pacific entrance of the Straits. The
next morning dawned clear and the
weather was fine, but very cold. The
SURF ounding scenery far surpassed
my widest expectations. 1t had the
same general appearance of that of
the day before, but the sides of the
mountains were very bleak and bar
rem, being covered with huge boulders
and smaller rocks, and had no visible
vegetation except just, few bushes
along the water's edge. We had
noticed several smokes ascending
from both shores as we passed along,
consequently all hands we're keeping
bright lookout for Patag
savages, and abont . p. m. today,
Feb. 9th, our vigilance was rewarded.
A canoe put out from the shore and
started toward the ships, so we
stopped to 'have a look Their
boat, if snch craft could be called
boat, was of very rude type. 1t
was not built of birch or neatly hol-
lowed out of a log and m modelled into a
neat canoe, but was very miserable
affair built of rough-burn planks.
lashed together with thongs. The
oars were more rough planks lashed
to very rude poles. 1t was about 10
feet long by about feet beam. In
the center was small fire, and in
the boat were four men, three women,
and eleven children. Although the
mercury was trying to knock the
bottom out of the glass, and we had
on everything we could pile on and
were still about to freeze, these Pata-
gonians had only a small skin thrown