228 TIERRA DEL FUEGO chap. 



still less that of domestic affection ; for the husband is to the 

 wife a brutal master to a laborious slave. Was a more horrid 

 deed ever perpetrated, than that witnessed on the west coast by 

 Byron, who saw a wretched mother pick up her bleeding dying 

 infant-boy, whom her husband had mercilessly dashed on the 

 stones for dropping a basket of sea-eggs ! How little can the 

 higher powers of the mind be brought into play : what is there 

 for imagination to picture, for reason to compare, for judgment 

 to decide upon ? to knock a limpet from the rock does not 

 require even cunning, that lowest power of the mind. Their 

 skill in some respects may be compared to the instinct of 

 animals ; for it is not improved by experience : the canoe, 

 their most ingenious work, poor as it is, has remained the same, 

 as we know from Drake, for the last two hundred and fifty 

 years. 



Whilst beholding these savages, one asks. Whence have they 

 come ? What could have tempted, or what change compelled, a 

 tribe of men to leave the fine regions of the north, to travel 

 down the Cordillera or backbone of America, to invent and 

 build canoes, which are not used by the tribes of Chile, Peru, 

 and Brazil, and then to enter on one of the most inhospitable 

 countries within the limits of the globe ? Although such 

 reflections must at first seize on the mind, yet we may feel sure 

 that they are partly erroneous. There is no reason to believe 

 that the Fuegians decrease in number ; therefore we must 

 suppose that they enjoy a sufficient share of happiness, of 

 whatever kind it may be, to render life worth having. Nature 

 by making habit omnipotent, and its effects hereditary, has 

 fitted the Fuegian to the climate and the productions of his 

 miserable country. 



After having been detained six days in Wigwam Cove by 

 very bad weather, we put to sea on the 30th of December. 

 Captain Fitz Roy wished to get westward to land York and 

 Fuegia in their own country. When at sea we had a constant 

 succession of gales, and the current was against us : we drifted 

 to 57° 23' south. On the nth of January 1833, by carrying 

 a press of sail, we fetched within a few miles of the great rugged 

 mountain of York Minster (so called by Captain Cook, and the 

 origin of the name of the elder Fuegian), when a violent squall 



