236 TIERRA DEL FUEGO chap. 



that they had been frightened by our cleaning and firing off 

 our muskets on the previous evening : by others, that it was 

 owing to offence taken by an old savage, who, when told to 

 keep farther off, had coolly spit in the sentry's face, and had 

 then, by gestures acted over a sleeping Fuegian, plainly showed, 

 as it was said, that he should like to cut up and eat our man. 

 Captain Fitz Roy, to avoid the chance of an encounter, which 

 would have been fatal to so many of the Fuegians, thought it 

 advisable for us to sleep at a cove a few miles distant. 

 Matthews, with his usual quiet fortitude (remarkable in a man 

 apparently possessing little energy of character), determined to 

 stay with the Fuegians, who evinced no alarm for themselves ; 

 and so we left them to pass their first awful night. 



On our return in the morning (28th) we were delighted to find 

 all quiet, and the men employed in their canoes spearing fish. 

 Captain Fitz Roy determined to send the yawl and one whale- 

 boat back to the ship ; and to proceed with the two other boats, 

 one under his own command (in which he most kindly allowed 

 me to accompany him), and one under Mr. Hammond, to survey 

 the western parts of the Beagle Channel, and afterwards to return 

 and visit the settlement. The day to our astonishment was 

 overpoweringly hot, so that our skins were scorched ; with this 

 beautiful weather, the view in the middle of the Beagle Channel 

 was very remarkable. Looking towards either hand, no object 

 intercepted the vanishing points of this long canal between the 

 mountains. The circumstance of its being an arm of the sea 

 was rendered very evident by several huge whales^ spouting in 

 different directions. On one occasion I saw two of these 

 monsters, probably male and female, slowly swimming one after 

 the other, within less than a stone's throw of the shore, over 

 which the beech -tree extended its branches. 



We sailed on till it was dark, and then pitched our tents in a 

 quiet creek. The greatest luxury was to find for our beds a 

 beach of pebbles, for they were dry and yielded to the body. 

 Peaty soil is damp ; rock is uneven and hard ; sand gets into 

 one's meat, when cooked and eaten boat -fashion ; but when h'ing 



^ One day, off the east coast of Tierra del Fuego, we saw a grand siglit in several 

 spermaceti whales jumping upright quite out of the water, with the exception of their 

 tail-fins. As they fell down siileways, they splashed the water high up, and the 

 sound reverberated like a distant broadside. 



