cuar. x.} ASTONISHMENT OF NATIVES AT FIRE-ARMS. 219 
was difficult to satisfy these savages. Young and old, men and 
children, never ceased repeating the word “ yammerschooner,” 
which means “ give me.” After pointing to almost every object, 
one after the other, even to the buttons on our coats, and saying 
their favourite word in as many intonations as possible, they 
would then use it in a neuter sense, and vacantly repeat “‘ yam- 
merschooner.” After yammerschoonering for any article very 
eagerly, 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 fire-arms. 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 comparc 
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 o! 
running away. We can hardly put ourselves in the position o/ 
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 amark struck by a bullet, it may be 
some time before he is able at all to understand how it is effected ; 
