1833.] FOREST-CLAD HILLS. 223 



this part of the country. It was most curious to watch him 

 when thus talking, and see his eyes gleaming, and his 

 whole face assume a new and wild expression. As we 

 proceeded along the Beagle Channel, the scenery assumed a 

 peculiar and very magnificent character ; but the effect was 

 much lessened from the lowness of the point of view in a 

 boat, and from looking along the valley, and thus losing 

 all the beauty of a succession of ridges.^ The mountains 

 were here about three thousand feet higli, and terminated 

 in sharp and jagged points. They rose in one unbroken 

 sweep from the water's edge, and were covered to the 

 height of fourteen or fifteen hundred feet by the dusky- 

 coloured forest. It was most curious to observe, as far as 

 the eye could range, how level and truly horizontal the line 

 on the mountain side was, at which trees ceased to grow ; 

 it precisely resembled the high-water mark of drift-weed on 

 a sea-beach. 



At night we slept close to the junction of Ponsonby Sound 

 with the Beagle Channel. A small family of Fuegians, 

 who were living in the cove, were quiet and inoffensive, 

 and soon joined our party round a blazing fire. We were 

 well clothed, and though sitting close to the fire were far 

 from too warm ; yet these naked savages, though further 

 off, were observed, to our 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 

 morning (23rd) 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 

 nnked bodies all bedaubed with black, white,* and red, 



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

 gravity : Professor Elirenberg has examined it : he states (A'o/i/jf Aknd. 

 der Pvissen : Herlin, Feb. 1^45) that it is composed of infusoria, mcludine 

 fourteen polycfastrica and four phytolitharia. He says that they are all 

 inhabitants of fresh water; this is a beautiful example of the results obtain- 

 able throujjh Professor Ehrenberff's microscopin rosc.irches ; for Jemmy liuttf)i' 

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

 moreover, a strikint; fact in the geographical di.stnbutiun of the infusoria, 

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

 substance, although brought from the extreme southern point of Tierrs dki 



i^-gro, are old, known formn. 



