CHAP. X.] SETTLEMENT AT WOOLLVA. 223 



that he would never go on shore again. Everything went on so 

 quietly, that some of the officers and myself took long walks in 

 the surrounding hills and woods. Suddenly, however, on the 

 27th, every woman and child disappeared. We were all uneasy 

 at this, as neither York nor Jemmy could make out the cause. 

 It was thought by some that they had been frightened by our 

 cleaning and firing off our muskets on the previous evening: by 

 others, that it was owing to offence taken by an old savage, who, 

 when told to keep further off, had coolly spit in the sentry's face, 

 and had then, by gestures acted over a sleeping Fuegian, plainly 

 showed, as it was said, that he should like to cut up and eat our 

 man. Captain Fitz Roy, to avoid the chance of an encounter, 

 which would have been fatal to so many of the Fuegians, thought 

 it advisable for us to sleep at a cove a few miles distant. Mat- 

 thews, with his usual quiet fortitude (remarkable in a man appa- 

 rently possessing little energy of character), determined to stay 

 with the Fuegians, who evinced no alarm for themselves ; and so 

 we left them to pass their first awful night. 



On our return in the morning (28th) we were delighted to find 

 all quiet, and the men employed in their canoes spearing fish. 

 Captain Fitz Roy determined to send the yawl and one whale- 

 boat back to the ship ; and to proceed with the two other boats, 

 one under his own command (in which he most kindly allowed 

 me to accompany him), and one under Mr. Hammond, to survey 

 the western parts of the Beagle Channel, and afterwards to return 

 and visit the settlement. The day to our astonishment was over- 

 poweringly hot, so that our skins were scorched : with this beau- 

 tiful weather, the view in the middle of the Beagle Channel was 

 very remarkable. Looking towards either hand, no object inter- 

 cepted the vanishing points of this long canal between the moun- 

 tains. The circumstance of its being an arm of the sea was 

 rendered very evident by several huge whales* spouting in dif- 

 ferent directions. On one occasion I saw two of these monsters, 

 probably male and female, slowly swimming one after the other, 

 within less than a stone's throw of the shore, over which the 

 beech-tree extended its branches. 



* One day, off the East coast of Tierra del Fuego, we saw a grand sight 

 n several spermaceti whales jumping upright quite out of the water, with 

 the exception of their tail-fins. As they fell down sideways, they splashed 

 the water high up, and the sound reverberated like a distant broadside. 



