TIERRA DEL FUEGO. 153 



aries, sent out about 1860 by the Church of England Missionary Society, 

 to do mission work among the Yahgan Indians, at that time the most 

 populous tribe inhabiting this coast and the adjoining islands. The work 

 of these missionaries has been continued with little interruption through- 

 out the past forty years, and with remarkable success, so that the Yahgans, 

 who formerly numbered several hundred, have been so thoroughly civil- 

 ized by the missionaries that, according to a statement made to me by 

 Mr. Lawrence, who at the time of my visit was in charge of the mission 

 at Ushuaia, they are now reduced in number to some thirty or forty 

 souls. This depopulation has been due chiefly to consumption, propa- 

 gated and fostered among them, it seems very probable, by the sudden 

 introduction of clothing without, at the same time, instilling into their 

 minds those hygienic principles essential to the proper use of such 

 garments. 



Beside being the capital of Argentine Tierra del Fuego, Ushuaia gains 

 additional importance from being the site of a small sawmill and a factory 

 for the canning of Lithodcs antarctica and Paralomisgrannlosa, large crabs 

 found in the waters of this region. We went ashore and spent the day 

 looking about over the town and in a walk through the adjacent forest, 

 which had been already somewhat devastated and shorn of its primitive 

 nature by the axe of the woodsman, marks of which were to be seen on 

 every hand. In the town we were surprised to see, in one of the gardens, 

 a bed of pansies in full bloom, though it was now late in May, a season 

 almost equivalent to the first of December in our latitude. Here, as else- 

 where in these forests, the two species of beech, Fagus antarctica and 

 F. betuloides, were the prevailing, and, except for an occasional example 

 of Drimys ivinteri, the evergreen Winter's bark, the only real trees to 

 be found. 



Aftera day passed at Ushuaia the " Villarino" returned to Lapataia, which 

 in a small way has been made a coaling station by the Argentine govern- 

 ment. There was also a sawmill at this place, and we remained here for 

 three days, recoaling and embarking a quantity of lumber and telegraph 

 poles for the proposed telegraph line along the east coast of Patagonia. 

 This much needed convenience, which could be constructed with very 

 little difficulty, has as yet never succeeded in getting beyond the prospec- 

 tive stage. It furnishes one among many striking examples of the dila- 

 tory methods pursued in Spanish-American countries. If the same con- 



