98 FORMER ACCOUNTS OF PATAGONIANS. 
(which is contained in Purchas), is not considered credible. He 
describes the Patagonians to be fifteen or sixteen spans in height ; 
and that of these cannibals, there came to them at one time 
above a thousand! The Indians at Port Famine, in the same 
narrative, are mentioned as a kind of strange cannibals, short 
of body, not above five or six spans high, very strong, and 
thick made.* 
The natives, who were so inhumanly murdered by Oliver 
Van Noort, on the Island of Santa Marta (near Elizabeth 
Island), were described to be nearly of the same stature as the 
common people in Holland, and were remarked to be broad 
and high-chested. Some captives were taken on board, and one, 
a boy, informed the crew that there was a tribe living farther 
in-land, named ‘ Tiremenen,’ and their territory ‘ Coin ;’ 
that they were “ great people, like giants, being from ten to 
twelve feet high, and that they came to make war against 
the other tribes, whom they reproached for being eaters of 
ostriches !”t 
Spilbergen (1615) says he “ saw a man of extraordinary 
stature, who kept on the higher grounds to observe the ships ; 
and on an island, near the entrance of the Strait, were found 
the dead bodies of two natives, wrapped in the skins of pen- 
guins, and very lightly covered with earth; one of them was 
of the common human stature, the other, the journal says, 
was two feet and a half longer.§ The gigantic appearance of 
the man on the hills may perhaps be explained by the optical. 
deception we ourselves experienced. 
Le Maire and Schouten, whose accounts of the graves of 
the Patagonians agree precisely with what we noticed at Sea 
Bear Bay, of the body being laid on the ground covered with 
* Burney, ii. p. 106. 
+ The tribes described by this boy are the 
1. Kemenites, inhabiting a place called Karay. 
B “Kennek as is-sacs2 csiee sayeiteis ate soto Karamay- 
DipCaralke - wins icicine eisteteieie males eee 1 Monies 
4, Enoo, the tribe to which the Indians, whom they murdered, 
belonged. 
} Burney, ii. 215. § Ibid. ii. 334. 
