io8 THROUGH THE HEART OF PATAGONIA 



crop of orange whiskers. The Onas are reported to have amused 

 themselves by pulling these out in instalments by the roots. 

 Might not some anthropologist base a treatise upon "The 



BEAUTIES OF TIERRA DEL FUEGO 



Artistic Perceptions of the Onas of Tierra del Fuego " upon 

 this occurrence ? 



The Onas are also a tall people, although not equalling in 

 height my friends the Tehuelches, and their physical development 

 is less conspicuously remarkable. The Ona woman does not, as 

 does the Tehuelche china, form an attachment to a white suitor, 

 appearing to have no desires outside her own race and people, 

 but under certain circumstances the women have shared the hearth- 

 stone of the foreigner. Polygamy is allowed and practised among 

 them. There is something of the spirit which characterises the 

 Gipsy of Europe about this people ; they are quite ready to take 

 all they can get from the alien, while they at the same time main- 

 tain a bitter rancour against the hand that gives. But this is not, 

 as it is in the case of the Gipsies, the continuance of an original 



