236 CHARLES DARWIN 



the hostile tribe nearest to his own. He often told us how 

 the savage Oens men " when the leaf red," crossed the moun- 

 tains from the eastern coast of Tierra del Fuego, and made 

 inroads on the natives of 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 high, 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 Teke- 

 nika, 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 naked 

 bodies all bedaubed with black, white, 1 and red, they looked 



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



gravity: Professor Ehrenberg has examined it: he states (Konig Akad. 

 er Wissen: Berlin, Feb. 1845) that it is composed of infusoria, including 

 fourteen polygastrica, and four phytolitharia. He says that they are all 



