falling back
into the water, or down the pouch-like gullet held agape for it, is
caught by one or more of the gulls, and those greedy birds continue the
fight among themselves, leaving the pelican they have robbed to go
diving again.

Night comes on, but not with the darkness anticipated. For still
another wonder is revealed to them ere closing their eyes in sleep--the
long continuance of twilight, far beyond anything of the kind they have
ever experienced, Seagriff excepted. But its cause is known to them;
the strange phenomenon being due to the fact that the sun, for some time
after it has sunk below the horizon, continues to shine on the
glistening ice of the glaciers and the snow of the mountain summits,
thus producing a weird luminosity in the heavens, somewhat resembling
the Aurora Borealis.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1. He discovered the Straits, or, more properly, Strait, in 1519.
His name is usually given as "Magellan" by French and English writers,
the Spaniards making it "Magallanes." But, as he was a native of
Portugal, and Magalhaens is the Portuguese orthography, it should be the
one preferred. By sealers and others, Tierra del Fuego is often called
"Fireland." Lady Brassey heard it so called by the settlers at "Sandy
Point," in the Strait.

Note 2. The beeches are the _Fagus Betuloides_ and _Fagus Antarchia_.
The former partakes also of the character of a birch. It is an
evergreen, while the leaves of the other fall off in the autumn. The
"Winter's-bark" (_Drimys Winletii_) is a laurel-like evergreen, which
produces an aromatic bark, somewhat resembling cinnamon. It derives its
name, not from the season, but from a Captain Winter, who first carried
the bark to England in 1579.

Note 3. The Fuegian parrot, or paroquet, is known to naturalists as
_Psittacus Imaragdinus_,--the humming-bird as _Melisuga Kingii_. It was
long believed that neither parrots nor humming-birds existed in Tierra
del Fuego; Buffon, with his usual incorrectness, alleging that the
specimens brought from it were taken elsewhere; other learned closet
naturalists insisted on the parrots reported to exist there being
"sea-parrots" (auks).

CHAPTER TWELVE.

A CATASTROPHE NOT ANTICIPATED.

Another day dawns upon the castaways, with again a bright sun on the
horizon; and Ned Gancy and Henry Chester, who have risen early, as they
look out over the water, become wi