24th March 1833

East Falkland Island
We have never before stayed so long at a place & with so little for the Journal. For the sake of the fossil shells, I paid a visit of three days to the town. In a long ride I found the country no ways different from what it is in the neighbourhead of the Ship. The same entire absence of trees & the same universal covering of brown wiry grass growing on a peat soil. The inhabitants are a curious mixed race; their habitations are in a miserable condition & deficient in almost every accomodation. The place bespeaks what it has been, viz a bone of contention between different nations.