THE FUEGIAN. 101 



TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 



They often suffer from famine : I heard Mr. Low, a seal- 

 ing-master very well acquainted with the natives of this coun- 

 try, give a curious account of the state of a party of one hun- 

 dred and fifty natives on the west coast, who were very thin, 

 and in great distress. A succession of gales prevented the 

 women from getting shell-fish on the rocks, and they could 

 not go out in their canoes to catch seal. A small party of 

 these men one morning set out on a four days' journey for 

 food ; on their return Low went to meet them, and found 

 them excessively tired each man carrying a great square 

 piece of putrid whale's -blubber, with a hole in the mid- 

 dle, through which he put his head, as the Gauchos do 

 through their ponchos or cloaks. As soon as the blubber 

 was brought into a wigwam an old man cut off the slices, 

 and, muttering over them, broiled them for a minute, and 

 distributed them to the famished party, who, during this 

 time, preserved a profound silence. Mr. Low believes that 

 whenever a whale is cast on shore the natives bury large 

 pieces of it in the sand as a resource in time of famine. The 

 different tribes, when at war, are cannibals; and it is cer- 

 tainly true that, when pressed in winter by hunger, they kill 

 and devour their old women before they kill their dogs. A 

 boy, being asked by Mr. Low why they did this, answered : 

 "Doggies catch otters, old women no." 



Few, if any, of the natives in the Beagle Channel could 

 ever have seen a white man ; certainly nothing could exceed 

 their astonishment at the sight of our four boats. Fires were 

 lighted on every point (hence the name of Tierra del Fuego, 

 or the land of fire), both to attract our attention and to 



