XXIV PREFACE 



at first liand — stones for anvils and liammer.s, shells for knives 

 and rasps and pliers, shoulder blades of the Guanaco for 

 spades, pumiceons tuffs and hone-shaped limestones for grinding 

 purposes. Fire they obtain from pyrites, with dried Lijcoperdoii 

 for tinder. 



Shortly after my arrival at Useless Bay Settlement, when 

 skinnino' a bird one morning', I saw an Ona for the first time. 

 Conscious somehow of a strange presence. I looked round and 

 beheld a gigantic form robed in shaggy furs from head to foot — 

 erect, motionless, silent —regarding me with a gaze so impressive 

 and intense, that as I encountered it, my whole being experienced 

 a shock. A Man indeed ! What an absolute reality in every 

 respect ! Every character essential to an entirely independent 

 existence he possesses in striking degree, enabling him to live and 

 thrive in a land where Man of another race in similar circum- 

 stance would die outright. A frame physically and constitutionally 

 as strong as can be, resource in any emergency, determination, 

 courage recking nothing of cost to life or limb in the achieve- 

 ment of purpose, untiring patience, endurance to the end, 

 intelligence the outcome of instinct and reason so combined as to 

 place him on equal terms alike with Man and the lower creation 

 — all these are evident in him at a glance. AVhat he has gone 

 through in life is splendidly testified to in his person, whether 

 from exposure to the elements, or in warring with his own kind 

 — even also to a broken arm from the bullet of White Men, who 

 afterwards dragged him from their horses with the lazo and left 

 him for dead. But, what impresses one most of all is his 

 magnificent dignity and reserve — so natural, as to be impossible of 

 compromise. That stern, calm, thoughtful, deeply-lined, awfully 

 solemn face — so full of expression of all that is greatest and best 

 in Man, yet manifesting nothing evil — will dwell with me to my 

 dying day. 



" The solitary savage feels silently, and acutely," says 

 Washington Irving in his generous tribute to the Red Man. 

 " His sensibilities are not diftused over so wide a surface as those 



