45& CHARLES DARWIN 



my amusement. They were all partly clothed, and several 

 could speak a little English : their countenances were good- 

 humoured and pleasant, and they appeared far from being 

 such utterly degraded beings as they have usually been repre- 

 sented. In their own arts they are admirable. A cap being 

 fixed at thirty yards distance, they transfixed it with a spear, 

 delivered by the throwing-stick with the rapidity of an arrow 

 from the bow of a practised archer. In tracking animals or 

 men they show most wonderful sagacity ; and I heard of sev- 

 eral of their remarks which manifested considerable acute- 

 ness. They will not, however, cultivate the ground, or build 

 houses and remain stationary, or even take the trouble of 

 tending a flock of sheep when given to them. On the whole 

 they appear to me to stand some few degrees higher in the 

 scale of civilization than the Fuegians. 



It is very curious thus to see in the midst of a civilized 

 people, a set of harmless savages wandering about without 

 knowing where they shall sleep at night, and gaining their 

 livelihood by hunting in the woods. As the white man has 

 travelled onwards, he has spread over the country belonging 

 to several tribes. These, although thus enclosed by one com- 

 mon people, keep up their ancient distinctions, and some- 

 times go to war with each other. In an engagement which 

 took place lately, the two parties most singularly chose the 

 centre of the village of Bathurst for the field of battle. This 

 was of service to the defeated side, for the runaway warriors 

 took refuge in the barracks. 



The number of aborigines is rapidly decreasing. In my 

 whole ride, with the exception of some boys brought up by 

 Englishmen, I saw only one other party. This decrease, no 

 doubt, must be partly owing to the introduction of spirits, to 

 European diseases (even the milder ones of which, such as 

 the measles, 1 prove very destructive), and to the gradual 

 extinction of the wild animals. It is said that numbers of 

 their children invariably perish in very early infancy from 

 the effects of their wandering life; and as the difficulty of 



1 It is remarkable how the same disease is modified in different climates. 

 At the little island of St. Helena the introduction of scarlet fever is dreaded 

 as a plague. In some countries, foreigners and natives are as differently 

 affected by certain contagious disorders as if they had been different ani- 

 mals; of which fact some instances have occurred in Chile; and, according 

 to Humboldt, in Mexico (Polit. Essay, New Spain, vol. iv.). 



