PATAGONIA 



7 



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arrows, the bow being short and thick and the arrows tipped 

 with black and white flint heads. In another place Pioafetta 

 asserts that the least of the Pata^onians 

 was taller than the tallest men in Castile. 



Magellan treated the man with kind- 

 ness, and soon other natives paid the 

 Spaniards visits. With them they appear 

 to have brought a couple of young;- 

 guanacos, leashed together and led by a 

 cord. They stated that they kept these 

 animals as decoys for the wild herds, 

 who on approaching the tethered gua- 

 nacos fell an easy prey to the hunters 

 lying in ambush close at hand. 



The Pata^onians are said to have 

 eaten rats, caught on the ship, whole, 

 without even removing the skins ! How- 

 ever, they seem to have been peaceably 

 disposed towards the Spaniards, until 

 Magellan, being struck with their great 

 height, resolved to take home some 

 specimens of the race as curiosities for 

 the Emperor, and consequently he en- 

 trapped two of the young men while on 

 board his vessel. Seeing, however, that 

 one of these Patayfonians gfrieved for 



his wife, Magellan sent a party ashore with a couple of the 

 natives to fetch the woman : but on the road one ot the natives 

 was wounded, the result being that the whole tribe took to flight 

 after a slight skirmish with the Spaniards, one of whom died almost 

 instantly after being struck by an arrow. From this event ii would 

 seem that the Patagonians of that period used poisoned arrows, as 

 do the Onas of Tierra del Fuego to-day. These people do not 

 employ vegetable poison, but leave their arrows in a piitrid carcase 

 until thev become infected. 



The next navicrator to visit the shores of Patagonia was Sir 

 Francis Drake in 1578. He also commanded a small scjuadron ol 



A TEHUELCHKCACIQUE 



