226 TIERRA DEL FUEGO. [cHap. x. 
another day a whole party came armed with stones and stakes, 
and some of the younger men and Jemmy’s brother were crying: 
Matthews met them with presents. Another party showed by 
signs that they wished to strip him naked and pluck all the hairs 
out of his face and body. I think we arrived just in time to save 
his life. Jemmy’s relatives had been so vain and foolish, that 
they had showed to strangers their plunder, and their manner of 
obtaining it. It was quite melancholy leaving the three Fue- 
gians with their savage countrymen; but it was a great comfort 
that they had no personal fears. York, being a powerful resolute 
man, was pretty sure to get on well, together with his wife Fue- 
gia. Poor Jemmy looked rather disconsolate, and would then, 
I have little doubt, have been glad to have returned with us. 
His own brother had stolen many things from him; and as he 
remarked, ‘ what fashion cail that:? he abused his countrymen, 
‘all bad men, no sabe (know) nothing,’ and, though I never 
heard him swear before, * damueu tools.’ Our three Fuegians, 
though they had been only tmee years with civilized men, would, 
1 am sure, have been glad to nave retained their new habits; but 
this was obviously impossibie. I fear it is more than doubtful, 
whether their visit will have been of any use to them. 
In the evening, with Matthews on board, we made sail back to 
the ship, not by the Beagle Channel, but by the southern coast. 
The boats were heavily laden and the sea rough, and we had a 
dangerous passage. By the evening of the 7th we were on board 
the Beagle after an absence of twenty days, during which time 
we had gone three hundred miles in the open boats. On the 11th, 
Captain Fitz Roy paid a visit by himself to the Fuegians and 
found them going on well; and that they had lost very few more 
things. 
On the last day of February in the succeeding year (1834), 
the Beagle anchored in a beautiful little cove at the eastern en- 
trance of the Beagle Channel. Captain Fitz Roy determined on 
the bold, and as it proved successful, attempt to beat against the 
westerly winds by the same route, which we had followed in the 
boats to the settlement at Woollya. We did not see many 
natives until we were near Ponsonby Sound, where we were fol- 
lowed by ten or twelve canoes. The natives did not at all un- 
