208 Distinctive Characteristics of the 



latitude, South Georgia, New South Shetland, and some 

 smaller islands in neaily the same parallel, were at their dis- 

 covery, entirely uninhabited ; nor is there any evidence of 

 their ever having been visited by any American tribe. Yet 

 they possess seals and other marine animals in vast numbers, 

 and in these and all other respects appear to be not less pro- 

 ductive than the region inhabited by the Eskimaux. 



It is generally supposed that nautical enterprise results from 

 the necessity of the case, in nations proximate to, or surround- 

 ed by the sea. We have seen, hovv^ever, that the natives of 

 the islands of the Gulf of Mexico were exceptions to the 

 rule ; and we find another not less remarkable in the archi- 

 pelago of Chiloe, on the coast of Chili. These islands are 

 seen from the shore, and have a large Indian population which 

 depends for subsistence on fish taken from the surrounding 

 ocean ; yet even so late as the close of the past century, after 

 more than two hundred years of communication with the 

 Spaniards, their boats appear not to have been the least im- 

 proved from their original model. The padre Gonzalez de 

 Agueros, who resided many years among these islanders, de- 

 scribes their canoes as composed of five or six boards nar- 

 rowed at the ends and lashed together with cords, the seams 

 being filled with moss. They have sails, but neither keel 

 nor deck ; and in these frail and primitive vessels the inhabi- 

 tants commit themselves to a tempestuous sea in search of 

 their daily food. The same miserable vessels are found in 

 exclusive use in the yet more southern archipelago of Guai- 

 tecas, in which a sparse population is distributed over eight 

 hundred islands, and depends solely on the sea for subsistence. 

 The mechanical ingenuity of these people, therefore, is not 

 greater than that of the other Indians ; but from constant 

 practice with their wretched boats, they have acquired a dex- 

 terity in the use of them unknown to any other tribe, and 

 in some instances, under the direction of the Spaniards, have 

 become comparatively good sailors. 



De Azara mentions a curious fact in illustration of the pres- 

 ent inquiry. He declares that when his countrymen discov- 

 ered the Rio de la Plata, they found iis shores inhabited by 



