X FUEGIANS ON BOARD 219 



was no Devil in his land. Jemmy was short, thick, and fat, but 

 \'ain of his personal appearance ; he used always to wear gloves, 

 his hair was neatly cut, and he was distressed if his well-polished 

 shoes were dirtied. He was fond of admiring himself in a look- 

 ing-glass ; and a merry-faced little Indian boy from the Rio 

 Negro, whom we had for some months on board, soon perceived 

 this, and used to mock him: Jemmy, who was always rather jealous 

 of the attention paid to this little boy, did not at all like this, and 

 used to say, with rather a contemptuous twist of his head, " Too 

 much skylark." It seems yet wonderful to me, when I think over 

 all his many good qualities, that he should have been of the same 

 race, and doubtless partaken of the same character, with the 

 miserable, degraded savages whom we first met here. Lastly, 

 Fuegia Basket was a nice, modest, reserved young girl, with a 

 rather pleasing but sometimes sullen expression, and very quick 

 in learning anything, especially languages. This she showed in 

 picking up some Portuguese and Spanish, when left on shore for 

 only a short time at Rio de Janeiro and Monte Video, and in 

 her knowledge of English. York Minster was very jealous of 

 any attention paid to her ; for it was clear he determined to 

 marry her as soon as they were settled on shore. 



Although all three could both speak and understand a 

 good deal of English, it was singularly difficult to obtain much 

 information from them concerning the habits of their country- 

 men : this was partly owing to their apparent difficulty in 

 understanding the simplest alternative. Every one accustomed 

 to very young children knows how seldom one can get an 

 answer even to so simple a question as whether a thing is 

 black or white ; the idea of black or white seems alternately to 

 fill their minds. So it was with these Fuegians, and hence it 

 was generally impossible to find out, by cross -questioning, 

 whether one had rightly understood anything which they had 

 asserted. Their sight was remarkably acute : it is well known 

 that sailors, from long practice, can make out a distant object 

 much better than a landsman ; but both York and Jemmy 

 were much superior to any sailor on board : several times they 

 have declared what some distant object has been, and though 

 doubted by every one, they have proved right when it has 

 been examined through a telescope. They were quite conscious 

 of this power ; and Jemmy, when he had any little quarrel 



