232 TIERRA DEL FUEGO. (cHap. XI. 
at Cape Gregory with the fanious so-called gigantic Patagonians, 
who gave usa cordial reception. Their height appears greater 
than: it really is, from their large guanaco mantles, their long 
flowing hair, and general figure: on an average their height is 
about six feet, with some men taller and only a few shorter; 
and the women are also tall; altogether they are certainly the 
tallest race which we anywheresaw. In features they strikingly 
resemble the more northern Indians whom I saw with Rosas, 
but they have a wilder and more formidable appearance: their 
faces were much painted with red and black, and one man was 
ringed and dotted with white like a Fuegian. Capt. Fitz Roy 
offered to take any three of them on board, and all seemed de- 
termined to be of the three. It was long before we could clear 
the boat; at last we got on board with our three giants, who 
dined with the Captain, and behaved quite like gentlemen, help. 
ing themselves with knives, forks, and spoons: nothing was so 
much relished as sugar. This tribe has had so much commu- 
nication with sealers and whalers, that most of the men can speak 
a little English and Spanish; and they are half civilised, and 
proportionally demoralised. 
The next morning a large party went on shore, to barter for 
skins and ostrich-feathers; fire-arms being refused, tobacco was 
in greatest request, far more so than axes or tools. The whole 
population of the toldos, men, women, and children, were arranged 
onabank. It was an amusing scene, and it was impossible not to 
like the so-called giants, they were so thoroughly good-humoured 
and unsuspecting: they asked us to come again. They seem to 
like to have Europeans to live with them; and old Maria, an im- 
portant woman in the tribe, once begged Mr. Low to leave any one 
of his sailors with them. They spend the greater part of the year 
here; but in summer they hunt along the foot of the Cordillera: 
sometimes they travel as far as the Rio Negro, 750 miles to the 
north. They are well stocked with horses, each man having, ac- 
cording to Mr. Low, six or seven, and all the women, and even 
children, their one own horse. In the time of Sarmiento (1580), 
these Indians had bows and arrows, now long since disused ; they 
then also possessed some horses. This isa very curious fact, show- 
ing the extraordinarily rapid multiplication of horses in South 
America, The horse was first landed at Buenos Ayres in 1537, 
