STRAIT OF MAGELLAN. 299 



speak a little English and Spanish ; and they are 

 half civilized, and proportionally demoralized. 



The next morning a large party went on shore 

 to barter for skins and ostrich feathers ; fire-arms 

 being refused, tobacco was in greatest request, far 

 more so than axes or tools. The whole population 

 of the toldos, men, women, and children, were ar- 

 ranged on a bank. It was an amusing scene, and 

 it was impossible not to like the so-called giants, 

 they were so thoroughly good-humoured and un- 

 suspecting : they asked us to come again. They 

 seem to like to have Europeans to live with them ; 

 and old Maria, an important woman in the tribe, 

 once begged Mr. Low to leave any one of his 

 sailors with them. They spend the greater part 

 of the year here ; but in summer they hunt along 

 the foot of the Cordillera : sometimes they travel 

 as far as the Rio Negro, 750 miles to the north. 

 They are well stocked with horses, each man hav- 

 ing, according to Mr. Low, six or seven, and all the 

 women, and even children, their one own horse. 

 Li the time of Sarmiento (1580), these Indians had 

 bows and aiTows, now long since disused ; they 

 then also possessed some horses. This is a very 

 curious fact, showing the extraordinarily rapid 

 multiplication of horses in South America. The 

 horse was first landed at Buenos Ayres in 1537, 

 and the colony being then for a time deserted, the 

 horse ran wild ;* in 15S0, only forty-three years 

 afterwards, we hear of them at the Strait of Magel- 

 lan ! Mr. Low informs me that a neighbouring 

 tribe of foot-Indians is now changing into horse- 

 Indians : the tribe at Gregory Bay giving them 

 their worn-out horses, and sending in winter a few 

 of their best skilled men to hunt for them. 



Jzinc 1st. — We anchored in the fine bay of Port 

 * Rengger, Natur. der Saeugethiere von Paraguay. S. 334. 



