THE FUEGIANS. 



427 



black, excepting a white band across his eyes) succeeded in making far more 

 hideous grimaces. They could repeat with perfect correctness each word in 

 any sentence we addressed them, and they remembered such words for some 

 time. Yet we all know how difficult it is to distinguish apart the sounds in a 

 foreign language." 



Close to the junction of Ponsonby Sound with the Beagle Channel, where 

 My. Darwin and his party spent the night, a small family of Fuegians soon 

 joined the strangers^ round a blazing fire. They seemed well pleased, and all 

 joined in the chorus of the seamen's songs. During the night the news had 

 spread, and early in the morning other Fuegians arrived. Several of these had 

 run so fast that their noses were bleeding, and their mouths frothed from the 

 rapidity with which they^talked ; and with their naked bodies all bedaubed with 

 black, white, and red, they looked like so many demons. 



FUEGIAN TRADERS. 



These people plainly showed that they had a fair notion of barter. Mr. Dar- 

 win gave one man a large nail (a most valuable present) without making any 

 signs for a return ; but he immediately picked out two fish, and handed them 

 up on the point of his spear. Here at least we see signs of a mental activity 

 favorably contrasting with the stolid indifference of the Fuegians seen by For- 

 ster at Christmas Harbor ; and Mr. Darwin is even of opinion that in general 

 these people rise above the AustraUans in mental power, although their actual 

 acquirements may be less. 



The reason why the Fuegians are so little advanced in the arts of life, 



