GUANACOES FIRE. 



187 



Fuegians and their dogs hem him in on every side, and 

 quickly make him their prey. 



Jemmy Button's division of the Tekeenica, living westward 

 of Murray Narrow, never obtain guanacoes; but the other 

 division, who live eastward of that small passage, often kill 

 them in winter ; and at other times of the year they sometimes 

 get them by lying in wait, and shooting them with arrows, or 

 by getting into a tree near their track, and spearing them as 

 they pass beneath the branches. An arrow was shewn to Low, 

 which was marked with blood two- thirds of its length in 

 wounding a guanaco, afterwards caught by dogs. Low held out 

 his jacket, making signs that the arrow would not penetrate it : 

 upon which the native pointed to his eye. 



Some of the families of this eastern division of the Tekeenica 

 have no canoes, living entirely at a distance from the shore, and 

 subsisting upon berries, birch-fungus, guanacoes, and birds. 

 The bows and arrows of those men are longer and better, and 

 they have some very fine dogs, which are trained to search for 

 and bring home food. These dogs often surprise the larger 

 birds, while feeding on the ground, as well as when they are 

 at roost, so quietly do they steal upon their prey. Byron men- 

 tions that the Chonos Indians send their dogs away to fish, 

 and that they assist their owners in fishing, by swimming about, 

 and driving the fish into a corner. This I have not witnessed 

 or heard of among the Fuegians ; but their dogs assist in a 

 similar manner when in pursuit of an otter, by swimming and 

 diving after it with the utmost eagerness. 



Fire, that essential necessary to man in every state and every 

 climate, is always kept alive by these savages wherever they 

 go, either in their canoes, in their wigwams, or even in their 

 hand, by a piece of burning wood ; but they are at no loss 

 to rekindle it, should any accident happen. With two stones 

 (usually iron pyrites) they procure a spark, which received 

 among tinder, and then whisked round in the air, soon kindles 

 into a flame. The tinder used is the inner down of birds, 

 well dried; very fine dry moss; or a dry kind of fungus found 

 on the under side of half-rotten trees. Where the pyrites is 



