436 FOOD AND HABITS. 



down from the high lands to seek for pasture near the sea. 

 The long legs of the animal stick deeply into the snow and 

 FIG 156. so: ft boggy ground, disabling him from escape, 

 while the Fuegians and their dogs hem him in 

 on every side and quickly make him their prey. 



At other times of the 



year they sometimes get them by lying in wait, and 

 shooting them with arrows, or by getting into a 

 tree near their track, and spearing them as they 

 pass beneath the branches. An arrow was shown to 

 . Low, which was marked with blood two-thirds of its 



.V'fiilli 7 



length in wounding a guanaco, afterwards caught by 

 dogs. Low held out his jacket, making signs that 

 the arrow would not penetrate it ; upon which the 

 native pointed to his eye."* Fig. 156 represents 

 the head of a Fuegian harpoon, which closely resem- 



4 IS 1 bles the ancient Danish specimen figured in p. 80. 



" Of vegetable food they have very little : a few 

 berries, cranberries, and those which grow on the 

 arbutus, and a kind of fungus which is found on the 

 beech, being the only sorts used. The wretched 

 Fuegians often suffer greatly from famine. On one 

 occasion when the Chonos were in great distress on 

 this account, a small party went away, and the 

 natives said that in four sleeps they would return 

 with food. On the fifth day they came back almost 

 dead with fatigue, and "each man having two or 

 three great pieces of whale -blubber, shaped like a 

 poncho with a hole in the middle, on his shoulders. 

 The blubber was half putrid, and looked as if it had 



Bon< keen Buried underground." Notwithstanding this, 



Harpoon. -^ wag ^ -^ s ^ ces ^ b ro iled, and eaten. On another 



occasion masses of blubber were found in sand, doubtless 



* Fitzroy, Lc. p. 187. 



