122 AN INDIAN GRAVE. [CHAP. vm. 



into many gulleys. There was not a tree, and, excepting the guanaco, 

 which stood on the hill-top a watchful sentinel over its herd, scarcely 

 an animal or a bird. All was stillness and desolation. Yet in passing 

 over these scenes, without one bright object near, an ill-defined but 

 strong sense of pleasure is vividly excited. One asked how many agea 

 the plain had thus lasted, and how many more it was doomed thus to 

 continue. 



None can reply all seems eternal now. 



The wilderness has a mysterious tongue, 



Which teaches awful doubt.* 



In the evening we sailed a few miles further up, and then pitched the 

 tents for the night. By the middle of the next day the yawl was 

 aground, and from the shoalness of the water could not proceed any 

 higher. The water being found partly fresh, Mr. Chaffers took the 

 dingey and went up two or three miles further, where she also 

 grounded, but in a fresh-water river. The water was muddy, and 

 though the stream was most insignificant in size, it would be difficult 

 to account for its origin, except from the melting snow on the Cordillera 

 At the spot where we bivouaced, we were surrounded by bold cliffs 

 and steep pinnacles of porphyry. I do not think I ever saw a spot 

 which appeared more secluded from the rest of the world, than thii 

 rocky crevice in the wide plain. 



The second day after our return to the anchorage, a party of officers 

 and myself went to ransack an old Indian grave, which I had found on 

 the summit of a neighbouring hill. Two immense stones, each probably 

 weighing at least a couple of tons, had been placed in front of a ledge 

 of rock about six feet high. At the bottom of the grave on the hard 

 rock there was a layer of earth about a foot deep, which must have beec 

 brought up from the plain below. Above it a pavement of flat stones 

 was placed, on which others were piled, so as to fill up the space 

 between the ledge and the two great blocks. To complete the grave, 

 the Indians had contrived to detach from the ledge a huge fragment 

 and to throw it over the pile so as to rest on the two blocks. We 

 undermined the grave on both sides, but could not find any relics, 01 

 even bones. The latter probably had decayed long since (in which 

 case the grave must have been of extreme antiquity), for I found in 

 another place some smaller heaps, beneath which a very few crumbling 

 fragments could yet be distinguished as having belonged to a man. 

 Falconer states, that where an Indian dies he is buried, but that 

 subsequently his bones are carefully taken up and carried, let the 

 distance be ever so great, to be deposited near the sea-coast. This 

 custom, I think, may be accounted for by recollecting, that before the 

 introduction of horses, these Indians must have led nearly the same life 

 as the Fuegians now do, and therefore generally have resided in the 

 neighbourhood of the sea. The common prejudice of lying where one's 

 ancestors have lain, would make the now roaming Indians bring the less 

 perishable part of their dead to their ancient burial-ground on the coast, 

 * Shelley, Lines on Mont Blanc. 



