chap, x.] SETTLEMENT AT WOOLLYA- 221 



great surprise, to be streaming with perspiration at undergoing 

 such a roasting. They seemed, however, very well pleased, and 

 all joined in the chorus of the seamen s songs : but the manner 

 in which they were invariably a little behindhand was quite 

 ludicrous. 



During the night the news had spread, and early in the morn- 

 ing (23d) a fresh party arrived, belonging to the Tekenika, or 

 Jemmy's tribe. Several of them had run so fast that their noses 

 were bleeding, and their mouths frothed from the rapidity with 

 which they talked ; and with their naked bodies all bedaubed with 

 black, white,* and red, they looked like so many demoniacs who 

 had been fighting. We then proceeded (accompanied by twelve 

 canoes, each holding four or five people) down Ponsonby Sound 

 to the spot where poor Jemmy expected to find his mother and 

 relatives. He had already heard that his father was dead ; but 

 as he had had a " dream in his head " to that effect, he did not 

 seem to care much about it, and repeatedly comforted himself 

 with the very natural reflection — " Me no help it." He was not 

 able to learn any particulars regarding his father's death, as his 

 relations would not speak about it. 



Jemmy was now in a district well known to him, and guided 

 the boats to a quiet pretty cove named Woollya, surrounded by 

 islets, every one of which and every point had its proper native 

 name. We found here a family of Jemmy's tribe, but not his 

 relations : we made friends with them ; and in the evening they 

 sent a canoe to inform Jemmy's mother and brothers. The cove 

 was bordered by some acres of good sloping land, not covered 

 (as elsewhere) either by peat or by forest-trees. Captain Fitz 

 Roy originally intended, as before stated, to have taken York 

 Minster and Fuegia to their own tribe on the west coast ; but as 



* This substance, when dry, is tolerably compact, and of little specific 

 gravity : Professor Ehrenberg has examined it : he states (Konig Akad. der 

 Wissen: Berlin, Feb. 1845) that it is composed of infusoria, including four- 

 teen polygastrica, and four phytolitharia. He says that they are all inha- 

 bitants of fresh-water ; this is a beautiful example of the results obtainable 

 through Professor Ehrenberg's microscopic researches ; for Jemmy Button 

 told me that it is always collected at the bottoms of mountain-brooks. It is, 

 moreover, a striking fact in the geographical distribution of the infusoria, 

 which are well known to have very wide ranges, that all the species in this 

 substance, although brought from the extreme southern point of Tierra del 

 Fuego, are old, known forms. 



