232 TIERRA DEL FUEGO chap. 



eagerl}'-, they would by a simple artifice point to their young 

 women or little children, as much as to say, " If you will not 

 give it me, surely you will to such as these." 



At night we endeavoured in vain to find an uninhabited 

 cove ; and at last were obliged to bivouac not far from a party 

 of natives. They were very inoffensive as long as they were 

 few in numbers, but in the morning (21st) being joined by 

 others they showed symptoms of hostility, and we thought that 

 we should have come to a skirmish. An European labours 

 under great disadvantages when treating with savages like 

 these who have not the least idea of the power of firearms. 

 In the very act of levelling his musket he appears to the savage 

 far inferior to a man armed with a bow and arrow, a spear, or 

 even a sling. Nor is it easy to teach them our superiority 

 except by striking a fatal blow. Like wild beasts, they do not 

 appear to compare numbers ; for each individual, if attacked, 

 instead of retiring, will endeavour to dash your brains out with 

 a stone, as certainly as a tiger under similar circumstances 

 would tear you. Captain Fitz Roy, on one occasion being 

 very anxious, from good reasons, to frighten away a small 

 party, first flourished a cutlass near them, at which they only 

 laughed ; he then twice fired his pistol close to a native. The 

 man both times looked astounded, and carefully but quickly 

 rubbed his head ; he then stared awhile, and gabbled to his 

 companions, but he never seemed to think of running away. 

 We can hardly put ourselves in the position of these savages, 

 and understand their actions. In the case of this Fuegian, the 

 possibility of such a sound as the report of a gun close to his 

 ear could never have entered his mind. He perhaps literally 

 did not for a second know whether it was a sound or a blow, 

 and therefore very naturally rubbed his head. In a similar 

 manner, when a savage sees a mark struck by a bullet, it may 

 be some time before he is able at all to understand how it is 

 effected ; for the fact of a body being invisible from its velocity 

 would perhaps be to him an idea totally inconceivable. 

 Moreover, the extreme force of a bullet that penetrates a hard 

 substance without tearing it, may convince the savage that it 

 has no force at all. Certainly I believe that many savages of 

 the lowest grade, such as these of Tierra del Fuego, have seen 

 objects struck, and even small animals killed by the musket, 



