1832. 



INTERESTING MEETING. 



121 



rant, though by no means contemptible human beings, was a 

 natural emotion, and not the effect of individual caprice or erro- 

 neous enthusiasm ; and that his feelings were exactly in unison 

 with those I had experienced on former occasions, which had 

 led to my undertaking the heavy charge of those Fuegians 

 whom I brought to England. 



Disagreeable, indeed painful, as is even the mental contem- 

 plation of a savage, and unwilling as we may be to consider 

 ourselves even remotely descended from human beings in such 

 a state, the reflection that Caesar found the Britons painted 

 and clothed in skins, like these Fuegians, cannot fail to aug- 

 ment an interest excited by their childish ignorance of matters 

 familiar to civilized man, and by their healthy, independent 

 state of existence. One of these men was just six feet high, 

 and stout in proportion ; the others were rather shorter : their 

 legs were straight and well formed, not cramped and mis- , 

 shapen, like those of the natives who go about in canoes ; and 

 their bodies were rounded and smooth. They expressed satis- 

 faction or good will by rubbing or patting their own, and then 

 our bodies ; and were highly pleased by the antics of a man 

 belonging to the boat's crew, who danced well and was a good 

 mimic. One of the Fuegians was so like York Minster, that 

 he might well have passed for his brother. He asked eagerly 

 for ^' cuchillo."" About his eyes were circles of white paint, and 

 his upper lip was daubed with red ochre and oil. Another man 

 was rubbed over with black. They were (apparently) very 

 good-humoured, talked and played with the younger ones of 

 our party, danced, stood up back to back with our tallest men 

 to compare heights, and began to try their strength in wrest- 

 ling — but this I stopped. It was amusing and interesting to 

 see their meeting with York and Jemmy, who would not 

 acknowledge them as countrymen, but laughed at and mocked 

 them. It was evident that both of our Fuegians understood 

 much of the language in which the others talked ; but they 

 would not try to interpret, alleging that they did not know 

 enough. York betrayed this by bursting into an immoderate 

 fit of laughter at something the oldest man told him, which 



