THE FUEGIANS 137 



of ^Eolus, or to see a squall or Williewaw, as they are called, 

 strike the Terror, heel her over for a minute, and rush on 

 till it met the steady gale outside, of which we felt nothing. 

 On the hills its effects were also very remarkable, especially 

 high up near the Gorges, where the trees which met it in its 

 first burst would be all shattered, and lay in every direction 

 for an acre perhaps ; these, too, are sturdy, tough, stag- headed 

 little obstinate trees whose splintered trunks, though only a 

 few inches (8-14) in diameter, show that their mettle is good. 

 The poor Fuegians of course attracted our attention 

 before anything else, and surely they are the most degraded 

 savages that I ever set eyes upon. They are considered 

 as the lowest in the stage of civilisation of all nations under 

 the sun, the Tasmanians, now banished from that Island, 

 alone excepted. They inhabit various scattered parts of the 

 coast in separate tribes, said to be at war with one another. 

 Those we saw amount to about twenty and are said to be 

 confined to Hermite Island. They have wigwams made 

 of nothing but a few branches arranged in the form of a 

 beehive in the woods close to the sea, there are two or three 

 of them in almost every bay of the Islands, and they wander 

 either across the hills or in their canoes from one to another. 

 These canoes are the most useful articles they possess, though 

 very clumsily made of the Bark of trees sewn together 

 over a framework. The bottom is plastered with white 

 clay, of which a supply is always kept on board to stop a 

 leak they take great care of their boats, and whenever they 

 haul them up, which is the women's duty, they make a sort 

 of road of smooth pebbles up the beach, and then cut 

 quantities of seaweed over which they drag the boat up high 

 and dry. Little baskets made of rushes woven together, 

 and a drinking cup cut out of the root of a Laminaria, are 

 the only domestic utensils, wood ashes and clay used as 

 a pigment and a few shells strung on seal sinews their only 

 ornament, whilst their only weapons are a long sling and 

 a very long spear of wood with a bone head so fitted on to 

 the shaft that on striking a seal or penguin the shaft falls 

 out and remains attached to the head by a piece of sinew, 

 and thus encumbers the animal by floating. These Fuegians 

 wear no clothing whatever either in Winter or Summer 

 except such as are given them by us, more apparently for 



