74 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to our notions, scarcely deserves to be called articulate. Captain 

 Cook has compared it to a man clearing his throat, but certainly 

 no European ever cleared his throat with so many hoarse, guttural, 

 and clicking sounds. 



They are excellent mimics : as often as we coughed or yawned, 

 or made any odd motion, they immediately imitated us. Some of 

 our party began to squint and look awry ; but one of the young 

 Fuegians (whose whole face was painted black, excepting a 

 white band across his eyes) succeeded in making far more hide- 

 ous grimaces. They could repeat with perfect correctness each 

 word in any sentence we addressed them, and they remem- 

 bered such words for some time. Yet we Europeans all know how 

 difficult it is to distinguish apart the sounds in a foreign language. 

 Which of us, for instance, could follow an American Indian 

 through a sentence of more than three words ? All savages ap- 

 pear to possess, to an uncommon degree, this power of mimicry. 

 I was told, almost in the same words, of the same ludicrous habit 

 among the Caff res ; the Australians, likewise, have long been noto- 

 rious for being able to imitate and describe the gait of any man, 

 so that he may be recognized. How can this faculty be explained ? 

 Is it a consequence of the more practiced habits of perception and 

 keener senses, common to all men in a savage state, as compared 

 with those long civilized ? 



When a song was struck up by our party, I thought the Fue- 

 gians would have fallen down with astonishment. With equal 

 surprise they viewed our dancing ; but one of the young men, 

 when asked, had no objection to a little waltzing. Little accus- 

 tomed to Europeans as they appeared to be, yet they knew and 

 dreaded our firearms ; nothing would tempt them to take a gun in 

 their hands. They begged for knives, calling them by the Span- 

 ish word cuchilla. They explained also what they wanted, by 

 acting as if they had a piece of blubber in their mouths, and then 

 pretending to cut instead of tear it. 



It was as easy to please as it was difficult to satisfy these sav- 

 ages. Young and old, men and children, never ceased repeating 

 the word yammer schooner , which means " give me." After 

 pointing to almost every object, one after the other, even to the 

 buttons on our coats, and saying their favorite word in as many 

 intonations as possible, they would then use it in a neuter sense, 

 and vacantly repeat yammer schooner. After yammerschooher- 

 ing for any article very eagerly, they would by a simple artifice 

 point to their young women or little children, as much as to say, 

 'If you will not give it me, surely you will to such as these." 



There is one vegetable production deserving notice from its im- 

 portance as an article of food to the Fuegians. It is a globular, 

 bright-yellow fungus, which grows in vast numbers on the beech- 



