FALKLAND ISLANDS. These remote islands will in time acquire commercial im portance. They are situated in the South Atlantic, and consist of two islands of conside rable size, and many smaller ones. East Falk land is about 90 miles long, and on an ave rage 40 miles wide ; West Falkland is about 80 miles long, with a mean width cf about 25 miles. The smaller islands, about two hun dred in number, vary considerably, from 10 miles in length and 8 in width, to mere islets of half a mile in diameter. The area of the whole is about 6000 square miles.
Tho Falklands are moderately fertile, and contain several good harbours. Small colonies were formed there by the French and the English in the last century, but afterwards abandoned. When,however, it was found that the islands formed a convenient halting-place for southern whalers, the Republic of Buenos Ayres took possession of them in 1820. Eng land protested against this step in 1829. Meanwhile the government of Buenos Ayres had formed a settlement at Port Louis in 1823, but Great Britain asserted its rights, and the colony was given up to the English in 1833. The islands have since assumed the condition of a regular British colony, and in 1814 a new town was laid out on the southern shore of Stanley Harbour, a land-locked inlet sheltered from every wind.
In a recent letter from Falkland it is said : ' The number of wild cattle now upon East Falkland is estimated at over 150,000 head, in addition to which there are herds of several thousand tame stock, and about 3000 wild horses, with several troops of tamed horses, some imported from South America, and some of the native breed, trained to assist in cap turing and managing the cattle. This latter
work is chiefly performed by a clasi of men called Guachos, natives of the Pampas of La Plata, whose occupation, from childhood up wards, is the pursuit and subjection of the wild herds which, in countless numbers, cover those vast plains ; but latterly several English and Irish men have been initiated in the arts of the Guachos, and have proved themselves quite as skilful as the South American hun ters, whilst they conduct their perilous peen • pation with more humanity and consequently with greater profit to their employers. It is found that all esculent vegetables, particularly carrots, parsneps, and turnips, thrive and grow to great perfection in these islands, the climate of which is remarkably salubrious. As a naval station, there can be no question that the Falklands are, at the present juncture, more than at any former period, a most important possession of the crown.'