AFfEXDIX. 107 



Magellan during his passage.* He represents them as a fine 

 and friendly people, clothed in skins, and on their legs a sort of 

 boots ; and many of them tied their hair, which was long and black, 

 with a sort of woven stuff of the breadth of a garter, made of some 

 kind of wool ; that their arms were slings, formed of tw^o round balls 

 fastened one to each end of a cord, which they fling with great force 

 and dexterity. He adds : " They hold one ball in their hand, and 

 swing the other, at the full length of the cord, round their head, 

 by which it acquires a prodigious velocity ; they will fling it to 

 a great distance, and with such exactness, as to strike a very small 

 object." These people were also mounted on horses ; their saddles, 

 bridles, &c., were of their omti making ; some had iron, and others 

 metal bits to their bridles, and one had a Spanish broad-sword ; but 

 whether the last articles were taken by war, or procured by com- 

 merce, is uncertain ; but the last is most probable. It seems 

 evident that they had intercourse with Europeans, and had even 

 adopted some of their fashions, for many had cut their dress into the 

 form of Spanish ponchos, or a square piece of cloth with a hole cut 

 for the head, the rest hanging loose as low as their knees ; they also 

 wore drawers. — So these people had attained a few steps farther 

 towards ci^^Hzation than their gigantic neighbours ; others, again, 

 wiU appear to have made a far greater advance, for these still de- 

 voured their meat raw, and drank nothing but water. 



M. Bougainville, in the same year, saw another party of the 

 natives of Patagonia. He measured several of them, and declares 

 that none were lower than five feet five inches French, or taller 

 than five feet ten ; i. e. five feet ten, or six feet three, English 

 measure. He concludes his account with saying, that he afterwards 

 met with a taller people in the South Sea, but I do not recollect 

 that he mentions the place. 



I am sorry to be obhged to remark, in these voyages, a very 

 illiberal propensity to cavil at and invahdate the account given by 

 Mr. Byron, but at the same time exult in having had an opportunity 

 given me by that gentleman of vindicating his and the national 

 honour. M. Bougainville, in order to prove that he fell in with the 

 identical people that Mr. B)rron conversed with, asserts that he saw 

 numbers of them possessed of knives of an Enghsh manufactory, 

 certainly given them by Mr. Byron. But he should have considered 

 « Phil. Trans. 1770, p. 21. Hawkesworth's Voy. vol. i. 374. 



o "i 



