In Features They Strikingly Resemble The More Northern
Indians Whom I Saw With Rosas, But They Have A Wilder And
More Formidable Appearance:
Their faces were much painted
with red and black, and one man was ringed and dotted with
white like a Fuegian.
Captain Fitz Roy offered to take any
three of them on board, and all seemed determined to be of
the three. It was long before we could clear the boat; at
last we got on board with our three giants, who dined with
the Captain, and behaved quite like gentlemen, helping
themselves with knives, forks, and spoons: nothing was so much
relished as sugar. This tribe has had so much communication
with sealers and whalers that most of the men can speak a
little English and Spanish; and they are half civilized, and
proportionally demoralized.
The next morning a large party went on shore, to barter
for skins and ostrich-feathers; fire-arms being refused,
tobacco was in greatest request, far more so than axes or
tools. The whole population of the toldos, men, women, and
children, were arranged on a bank. It was an amusing
scene, and it was impossible not to like the so-called giants,
they were so thoroughly good-humoured and unsuspecting:
they asked us to come again. They seem to like to have
Europeans to live with them; and old Maria, an important
woman in the tribe, once begged Mr. Low to leave any one
of his sailors with them. They spend the greater part of the
year here; but in summer they hunt along the foot of the
Cordillera: sometimes they travel as far as the Rio Negro
750 miles to the north. They are well stocked with horses,
each man having, according to Mr. Low, six or seven, and
all the women, and even children, their one own horse. In
the time of Sarmiento (1580), these Indians had bows and
arrows, now long since disused; they then also possessed
some horses. This is a very curious fact, showing the
extraordinarily rapid multiplication of horses in South America.
The horse was first landed at Buenos Ayres in 1537, and the
colony being then for a time deserted, the horse ran wild; [2]
in 1580, only forty-three years afterwards, we hear of them at
the Strait of Magellan! Mr. Low informs me, that a neighbouring
tribe of foot-Indians is now changing into horse-Indians:
the tribe at Gregory Bay giving them their worn-out horses,
and sending in winter a few of their best skilled men to hunt
for them.
June 1st. - We anchored in the fine bay of Port Famine.
It was now the beginning of winter, and I never saw a more
cheerless prospect; the dusky woods, piebald with snow,
could be only seen indistinctly, through a drizzling hazy
atmosphere. We were, however, lucky in getting two fine
days. On one of these, Mount Sarmiento, a distant mountain
6800 feet high, presented a very noble spectacle. I was
frequently surprised in the scenery of Tierra del Fuego, at the
little apparent elevation of mountains really lofty. I suspect
it is owing to a cause which would not at first be imagined,
namely, that the whole mass, from the summit to the water's
edge, is generally in full view. I remember having seen a
mountain, first from the Beagle Channel, where the whole
sweep from the summit to the base was full in view, and then
from Ponsonby Sound across several successive ridges; and
it was curious to observe in the latter case, as each fresh
ridge afforded fresh means of judging of the distance, how
the mountain rose in height.
Before reaching Port Famine, two men were seen running
along the shore and hailing the ship. A boat was sent for
them. They turned out to be two sailors who had run away
from a sealing-vessel, and had joined the Patagonians. These
Indians had treated them with their usual disinterested
hospitality. They had parted company through accident, and
were then proceeding to Port Famine in hopes of finding
some ship. I dare say they were worthless vagabonds, but I
never saw more miserable-looking ones. They had been living
for some days on mussel-shells and berries, and their
tattered clothes had been burnt by sleeping so near their fires.
They had been exposed night and day, without any shelter,
to the late incessant gales, with rain, sleet, and snow, and yet
they were in good health.
During our stay at Port Famine, the Fuegians twice came
and plagued us. As there were many instruments, clothes,
and men on shore, it was thought necessary to frighten them
away. The first time a few great guns were fired, when they
were far distant. It was most ludicrous to watch through a
glass the Indians, as often as the shot struck the water, take
up stones, and, as a bold defiance, throw them towards the
ship, though about a mile and a half distant! A boat was
sent with orders to fire a few musket-shots wide of them.
The Fuegians hid themselves behind the trees, and for every
discharge of the muskets they fired their arrows; all, however,
fell short of the boat, and the officer as he pointed at
them laughed. This made the Fuegians frantic with passion,
and they shook their mantles in vain rage. At last, seeing
the balls cut and strike the trees, they ran away, and we were
left in peace and quietness. During the former voyage the
Fuegians were here very troublesome, and to frighten them a
rocket was fired at night over their wigwams; it answered
effectually, and one of the officers told me that the clamour
first raised, and the barking of the dogs, was quite ludicrous
in contrast with the profound silence which in a minute or
two afterwards prevailed. The next morning not a single
Fuegian was in the neighbourhood.
When the Beagle was here in the month of February, I
started one morning at four o'clock to ascend Mount Tarn,
which is 2600 feet high, and is the most elevated point in this
immediate district.
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