1664 THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



the ancestors of the Eskimo must have lived in an- 

 other manner, and must have had wholly different 

 habits. The rigors of the region they now inhabit 

 have reduced this people to the condition in which 

 we now see them, and whatever arts their fathers 

 knew, suited to more genial climates, have been, and 

 could not fail to be, utterly forgotten. 



And now let us pass to the other extremity of the 

 great continent of America to Cape Horn, and to 

 the island off it, which projects its desolate rocks 

 into one of the most inhospitable climates in the 

 world. The inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego are per- 

 haps the most degraded among the races of mankind. 

 How could they be otherwise? "Their country," 

 says Mr. Darwin, "is a broken mass of wild rocks, 

 lofty hills, and useless forests ; and these are viewed 

 through mists and endless storms. The habitable 

 land is reduced to the stones of the beach. In search 

 of food they are compelled to wander unceasingly 

 from spot to spot, and so steep is the coast that they 

 can only move about in their wretched canoes." They 

 are habitual cannibals, killing and eating their old 

 women before they kill their dogs, for the sufficient 

 reason, as explained by themselves "Doggies catch 

 otters, old women no." Well might Darwin add, 

 "While beholding these savages one asks, Whence 

 have they come? What could have tempted, or what 

 change compelled, a tribe of men to leave the fine 

 regions of the north, to travel down the Cordillera, 

 or backbone of America, to invent and build canoes 

 which are not used by the tribes of Chili, Peru, and 

 Brazil, and then to enter on one of the most inhos- 



