THE FUEGIAN. 



95 



TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 



they immediately imitated us. Some of our party began to 

 squint and look awry ; but one of the young Fuegians (whose 

 whole face was painted 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 Europeans all know how 

 difficult it is to distinguish apart the sounds in a foreign 



NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN (WJLNNEBAGO). 



language. Which of us, for instance, could follow an Amer- 

 ican Indian through a sentence of more than three words? 

 All savages seem to have, to an uncommon degree, this power 

 of mimicry: I was told, almost in the same words, of the 

 same laughable habit among the South African Kaffirs ; the 

 Australians, likewise, have long been notorious for being able 

 to imitate and describe the gait of any man so that he may 

 be recognized. How can this faculty be explained? Does 

 it come from the more practised habits of perception and 



