334 AMONG THE PATAGONIANS. [chap. xi. 



Patagonians, who gave us a cordial reception. Their height 

 appears greater than it really is, from their large guanaco 

 mantles, their long flowing hair, and general figure ; on an 

 average their height is about six feet, with some men taller 

 and only a few shorter ; and the women are also tall ; 

 altogether they are certainly the tallest race which we 

 anywhere saw. In features they strikingly resemble the 

 more northern Indians whom I saw with Rosas, but they 

 have a wilder and more formidable appearance : their faces 

 were much painted with red and black, and one man was 

 ringed and dotted with white like a Fuegian. Captain Fitz 

 Roy offered to take any three of them on board, and all 

 seemed determined to be of the three. It was long before 

 we could clear the boat ; at last we got on board with our 

 three giants, who dined with the Captain, and behaved quite 

 like gentlemen, helping themselves with knives, forks, and 

 spoons : nothing was so much relished as sugar. This tribe 

 has had so much communication with sealers and whalers, 

 that most of the men can speak a little English and Spanish ; 

 and they are half civilised, and proportionally demoralised. 



The next morning a large party went on shore to barter for 

 skins and ostrich-feathers ; firearms 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 arranged 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 unsuspecting ; 

 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, seven hundred and fifty miles to the north. They 

 are well stocked with horses, each man having, according 

 to Mr. Low, six or seven, and all the women, and even 

 children, their one own horse. In the time of Sarmiento 

 (1580), these Indians had bows and arrows, 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 1580, only 



* Reng-ger. " Natur. der Saeugethiere von Paraguay," S. 334. 



