OBSTRUCTION SOUND. 



199 



large dimensions, and various shapes : two were like inverted 

 whale-boats, each of which might hold forty or fifty people ; 

 and in the long ones (six feet high), Mr. Bynoe could walk 

 upright. All of them were built of slight materials, such as 

 branches of trees covered with long grass. Five or six large 

 wigwams stood together in each place ; and near them canoes 

 had evidently been built, for many trees had been felled and 

 barked close by. The traces of fire were visible, which had 

 been trained around the roots of the trees ; and many large 

 pieces of bark w^ere lying about, partly sewed together. Four 

 good canoes were found in one place, one of the four being 

 quite new : and there were many old or broken ones. They also 

 saw on nearly every sandy point a neatly-constructed small 

 wigwam, about two feet high, at the entrance of which was a 

 platted rush noose, intended as a snare to catch swans pro- 

 bably, which were numerous about the adjoining grounds, and 

 generally roost on those sandy points. Many deer, like a kind 

 of roebuck, were seen by Mr. Bynoe, but he did not succeed 

 in shooting one. Horse tracks were seen near the upper part of 

 Obstruction Sound; showing that the eastern Patagonians 

 occasionally visit this part of the western coast. Mr. Bynoe 

 suggested the possibility of the natives of Skyring Water tra- 

 velling overland, building canoes, and then going northward 

 along the west coast ; but I do not myself think it so li kely as 

 that the Chonos Indians should select such a spot, abounding 

 in food, to pass their winter in, or to stay at for a considerable 

 time while building canoes. Probably, when Mr. Bynoe was 

 there (being summer-time) the tribe, whose winter quarters it 

 had been, were dispersed along the sea-coast in search of 

 seal, eggs, and young birds. In support of his idea Mr. By- 

 noe says, " I only met one canoe, and that of the bark kind, 

 in the Mesier Channel : whence could that one have come ? 

 None of the bark canoes have been seen by us on the west 

 coast, excepting in that instance, and in Obstruction Sound. 

 The distance from Skyring Water to the head of Obstruction 

 Sound is small, though sufficiently difficult to traverse to 

 prevent transporting canoes, because of low prickly brushwood. 



