1834.] INDIAN GRAVE. 169 
In the evening we sailed a few miles further up, and then 
pitched the tents for the night. By the middle of the next day 
the yawl was aground, and from the shoalness of the water could 
not proceed any higher. The water being found partly fresh, 
Mr. Chaffers took the dingey and went up two or three miles 
further, where she also grounded, but in a fresh-water river. 
The water was muddy, and though the stream was most insigni 
ficant in size, it would be difficult to account for its origin, 
except ftom the melting snow on the Cordillera. At the spot 
where we bivouacked, we were surrounded by bold cliffs and 
steep pinnacles of porphyry. I do not think I ever saw a spot 
which appeared more secluded from the rest of the world, than 
this rocky crevice in the wide plain. 
The second day after our return to the anchorage, a party of 
officers and myself went to ransack an old Indian grave, which I 
had found on the summit of a neighbouring hill. Two immense 
stones, each probably weighing at least a couple of tons, had 
been placed in front of a ledge of rock about six feet high. At 
the bottom of the grave on the hard rock there was a layer 
of earth about a foot deep, which must have been brought up 
from the plain below. Above it a pavement of flat stones was 
placed, on which others were piled, so as to fill up the space 
between the ledge and the two great blocks. To complete the 
grave, the Indians had contrived to detach from the ledge a huge 
fragment, and to throw it over the pile so as to rest on the two 
blocks. We undermined the grave on both sides, but could not 
find any.relics, or even bones. The latter probably had decayed 
long since (in which case the grave must have been of extreme 
antiquity), for I found in another place some smaller heaps, 
beneath which a very few erumbling fragments could yet be 
distinguished as having belonged to a man. Falconer states, 
that where an Indian dies he is buried, but that subsequently his 
bones are carefully taken up and carried, let the distance be ever 
so great, to be deposited near the sea-coast. This custom, I 
think, may be accounted for by recollecting, that before the in- 
troduction of horses, these Indians must have led nearly the 
same life as the Fuegians now do, and therefore generally have: 
resided in the neighbourhood of the sea. The common prejudice 
of lying where one’s ancestors have lain, would make the now 
