262 PATAGONIAN EXPEDITIONS: GEOGRAPHY. 



ample sustenance and wholesome employment in the pursuit and capture 

 of the guanaco and rhea, both of which are abundant throughout the entire 

 extent of this region. 



As a people, though not the race of giants they were commonly reported 

 to be by most early writers, the Tehuelches are, nevertheless, decidedly 

 above the average size. Of the three hundred Tehuelches living between 

 the Santa Cruz River and the Straits of Magellan, I should place the 

 average height of the men at not less than five feet eleven inches, with an 

 average weight of one hundred and seventy-five pounds, while the fully 

 grown women (those above twenty-four years of age) I should estimate 

 at five feet seven inches, and of an average weight but little, if any, less 

 than that of the men. This lack of disparity between the physical develop- 

 ment of the sexes is paralleled also in their mental development. This is 

 noteworthy, and is, I think, very largely due to the division of labor among 

 them. The labor necessary for the support of the family is more equally 

 divided between husband and wife, among the Tehuelches, than is com- 

 mon with the Indian tribes of North America. 



That these Indians are muscular and well-proportioned, is seen by a 

 glance at the illustrations in the accompanying plates. There is a ten- 

 dency to obesity rather than angularity. Conscious of their physical 

 strength, like most persons of great physique even among the more 

 civilized nations, they exhibit a kindly manner and gentle disposition. 

 Accustomed to the free life of the plains, and living in the midst of an 

 abundance of those animals that for centuries have supplied all their 

 simple wants, they display that homely hospitality so characteristic of well- 

 fed and well-clothed savage and civilized people in sparsely settled 

 countries. The frank, open countenance of the Tehuelche at once allays 

 any uneasiness and establishes a feeling of confidence in the mind of the 

 solitary traveller who, in the course of his lonely wanderings throughout 

 Patagonia, may, by chance or necessity, be thrown among them. 



The Tehuelches were formerly a considerably more numerous people 

 than at present, though it is hardly possible that they at any time num- 

 bered more than five thousand. It is doubtful if there are now more than 

 five hundred of them remaining in all Patagonia, and this small number 

 is being rapidly reduced by diseases introduced among them through con- 

 tact with the whites. That they are not prolific, is strikingly evidenced by 

 the small number of children common in pure-bred Tehuelche families. 



