ISO TIERRA DEL FtJEGO. [CHAP.X. 



taken them back. The natives were accompanied by a missionary, 

 R. Matthews; of whom nd of the natives, Captain Fitz Roy has 

 published a full and excellent account Two men, one of whom died 

 in England of the small-pox, a boy and a little girl, were originally 

 taken; and we had now on board, York Minster, Jemmy Button (whose 

 name expresses his purchase-money), and Fuegia Basket York 

 Minster was a full-grown, short, thick, powerful man ; his disposition 

 was reserved, taciturn, morose, and when excited violently passionate ; 

 his affections were very strong towards a few friends on board; his 

 intellect good. Jemmy Button was a universal favourite, but likewise 

 passionate ; the expression of his face at once showed his nice disposi- 

 tion. He was merry and often laughed, and was remarkably sympa- 

 thetic with any one in pain ; when the water was rough, I was often a 

 little sea-sick, and he used to come to me and say in a plaintive voice, 

 " Poor, poor fellow I " but the notion, after his aquatic life, of a. man 

 being sea-sick, was too ludicrous, and he was generally obliged to turn 

 on one side to hide a smile or laugh, and then he would repeat his 

 " Poor, poor fellow ! " He was of a patriotic disposition ; and he liked 

 to praise his own tribe and country, in which he truly said there were 

 " plenty of trees," and he abused all the other tribes ; he stoutly 

 declared that there was no devil in his land. Jemmy was short, thick, 

 and fat, but vain of his personal appearance ; he used always to wear 

 gloves, his hair was neatly cut, and he was distressed if his well- 

 polished shoes were dirtied. He was fond of admiring himself in a 

 looking-glass ; and a merry-faced little Indian boy from the Rio Negro, 

 whom we had for some months on board, soon perceived this, and used 

 to mock him ; Jemmy, who was always rather jealous of the attention 

 paid to this little boy, did not at all like this, and used to say, with 

 rather a contemptuous twist of his head, " Too much skylark." It 

 seems yet wonderful to me, when I think over all his many good quali- 

 ties, that he should have been of the same race, and doubtless partaken 

 of the same character, with the miserable, degraded savages whom we 

 first met here. Lastly, Fuegia Basket was a nice, modest, reserved 

 young girl, with a rather pleasing but sometimes sullen expression, and 

 very quick in learning anything, especially languages. This she showed 

 in picking up some Portuguese and Spanish, when left on shore for 

 only a short time at Rio de Janeiro and Monte Video, and in her know- 

 ledge of English, York Minster was very jealous of any attention paid 

 to her ; for it was clear he determined to marry her as soon as they 

 were settled on shore. 



Although all three could both speak and understand a good deal of 

 English, it was singularly difficult to obtain much information from 

 them concerning the habits of their countrymen ; this was partly owing 

 to their apparent difficulty in understanding the simplest alternative, 

 Every one accustomed to very young children, knows how seldom one 

 can get an answer even to so simple a question as whether a thing is 

 black or white ; the idea of black or white seems alternately to fill their 

 minds. So it was with these Fuegians, and hence it was generally im- 

 po-seible to find out, by cross-questioning, whether one had rightly 



