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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



fore. The sailoi's caught very few fisli 

 for some reason, but the mussels and 

 crabs and a couple of young fur seals 

 which the captain palmed off on us as 

 canned mutton proved very welcome 

 additions to our larder. We used the 

 wild celery in soup, and the Italian po- 

 lenta, made of cornmeal and chopped 

 duck and plovers, prepared by our cap- 

 tain, who sometimes took charge of the 

 culinary operations, was excellent. 



The wind subsided somewhat on the 

 fifth of January, and we sailed around 

 to the northern side of Wollaston, pro- 

 ceeding the next day to Bertrand Is- 

 land, on which is probably the most 

 southern sheep ranch in the world. A 

 few years ago some sheep were kept for 

 a while on Wollaston Island, but the 

 Indians gradually killed them off. Ber- 

 trand Island is owned by Captain 

 Grande, with whom I sailed a couple 

 of. times around Tierra del Fuego Is- 

 land. His family being at the ranch 

 when we arrived, we were treated to a 

 piano recital by the daughter and tea 

 and cakes by the senora, which brought 

 us quite within civilization again. 



We spent the next night anchored at 

 Rio Douglas Mission, where the Yahgan 

 Indian is making his last stand against 

 extinction. It seems to be a losing fight, 

 for the kindly, conscientious missionary, 

 Mr. Williams, who had been in the coun- 

 try many years, told us not more than 

 eighty remained of the hundreds that 

 roamed the straits thirty years ago. 

 When we visited them, only a dozen 

 were about the encampment and, al- 

 though there were at least four women 

 to be seen, only a single child was noted, 

 a babe in arms. The colony differed in 

 this respect from the Indians of other 

 localities visited, where as a rule one 

 found from four upward to be the aver- 

 age number of children to each woman. 

 Although Darwin, on his memorable 

 voyage in the "Beagle," decided that this 

 was one of the most degraded of human 

 tribes, we found some of these Indians 

 at least able to understand and speak a 

 little English and Spanish besides their 



own language. Two of the men were 

 working in the garden adjoining their 

 huts, but the others seemed to have no 

 pressing labor on hand. Several of 

 them, however, the next morning gave 

 us a hand in towing our boat out of the 

 river against the tide, and we passed 

 northward through the Murray Nar- 

 rows to the Beagle Channel and headed 

 back toward Punta Arenas. Our prog- 

 ress was somewhat slower going west- 

 ward, as the winds usually blew from 

 that direction. For forty miles the 

 channel nowhere exceeds four miles in 

 width, and it narrows down to less than 

 a mile at one spot. The mountains 

 close to the channel run up three thou- 

 sand feet or so, although French Peak. 

 seven or eight miles back on the Tierra 

 del Fuego side, stretches up more than 

 seven thousand feet. Several glaciers 

 crawl down and drop their ice into the 

 cold waters of the channel, and the trip 

 through this part of the archipelago is 

 one of exceeding interest. 



One morning, just after passing the 

 most picturesque part of the journey, 

 we saw smoke curling up from behind 

 a point of land near us, and on investi- 

 gation discovered an old Indian and his 

 squaw camped on the gravelly beach, 

 preparing to enjoy a repast of boiled 

 young shags. The manner of cooking 

 the birds was most simple : they were 

 grasped by the neck in the same condi- 

 tion as when taken from the nest and 

 deposited in a kerosene can half full of 

 boiling water. As the lower bird in the 

 can became cooked it was hauled out 

 with a stick, and an uncooked bird 

 pushed down in its place. A small cat 

 and three dogs accompanied the In- 

 dians, who later came paddling past our 

 boat in their little dugout canoe with 

 dogs, cat, fire, and food distributed 

 promiscuously from stem to stern. 



Although we had started westward 

 in Beagle Channel on the eighth, the 

 head wind and bad weather retarded us 

 to such an extent that Brecknock Pass, 

 about a hundred and fifty miles from 

 Murrav Narrows, was not reached until 



