274 TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 



these central tribes the men generally have an 

 otter-skin, or some small scrap about as large as a 

 pocket-handkerchief, which is barely sufficient to 

 cover their backs as low down as their loins. It 

 is laced across the breast by strings, and, accord- 

 ing as the wind blowa, it is shifted from side to 

 side. But these Fuegians in the canoe were quite 

 naked, and even one full-grown woman was abso- 

 lutely so. It was raining heavily, and the fresh 

 water, together with the spray, trickled down her 

 body. In another harbour, not far distant, a woman, 

 who was suckling a recently-born child, came one 

 day alongside the vessel, and remained there out 

 of mere curiosity, whilst the sleet fell and thawed 

 on her naked bosom, and on the skin of her naked 

 baby ! These poor wretches were stunted in their 

 growth, their hideous faces bedaubed with white 

 paint, their skins filthy and greasy, their hair en- 

 tangled, their voices discordant, and their gestures 

 violent. Viewing such men, one can hardly make 

 one's self believe that they are fellow-creatures 

 and inhabitants of the same world. It is a com- 

 mon subject of conjecture what pleasure in life 

 some of the lower animals can enjoy ; how much 

 more reasonably the same question may be asked 

 with respect to these barbarians ! At night, five or 

 six human beings, naked, and scarcely protected 

 from the wind and rain of this tempestuous climate, 

 sleep on the wet ground coiled up like animals. 

 Whenever it is low water, winter or summer, night 

 or day, they must rise to pick shell-fish from the 

 rocks ; and the women either dive to collect sea- 

 eggs, or sit patiently in their canoes, and with a 

 baited hair-line, without any hook, jerk out little fish. 

 If a seal is killed, or the floating cai'cass of a putrid 

 whale discovered, it is a feast ; and such miserable 

 food is assisted by a few tasteless berries and fungi. 



