326 



OENS-MEN — IMPROVEMENT. 



March 



built for transporting himself alone ; neither was the meeting 

 with his brother accidental. I am now quite sure that from the 

 time of his changing his mind, and desiring to be placed at 

 Woollya, with Matthews and Jemmy, he meditated taking a 

 good opportunity of possessing himself of every thing ; and 

 that he thought, if he were left in his own country without 

 Matthews, he would not have many things given to him, nei- 

 ther would he know where he might afterwards look for and 

 plunder poor Jemmy. 



While Mr. Bynoe was walking about on shore, Jemmy and 

 his brother pointed out to him the places where our tents were 

 pitched in 1 833, where the boundary line was, and where any 

 particular occurrence happened. He told Mr. Bynoe that he 

 had watched day after day for the sprouting of the peas, beans, 

 and other vegetables, but that his countrymen walked over them 

 without heeding any thing he said. The large wigwams which 

 we had erected with some labour, proved to be cold in the 

 winter, because they were too high ; therefore they had been 

 deserted after the first frosts. Since the last depredations of the 

 Oens-men, he had not ventured to live any longer at Woollya ; 

 his own island, as he called it, affording safer refuge and suffi- 

 cient food. 



J emmy told us that these Oens-men crossed over the Beagle 

 Channel, from eastern Tierra del Fuego, in canoes which they 

 seized from the Yapoo Tekeenica. To avoid being separated 

 they fastened several canoes together, crossed over in a body, 

 and when once landed, travelled over-land and came upon his 

 people by surprise, from the heights behind Woollya. Jemmy 

 asserted that he had himself killed one of his antagonists. It 

 was generally remarked that his family were become consi- 

 derably more humanized than any savages we had seen in 

 Tierra del Fuego: that they put confidence in us; were 

 pleased by our return ; that they were ready to do what we 

 could explain to be for their interest ; and, in short, that the first 

 step towards civilization— that of obtaining their confidence — 

 was undoubtedly made : but an individual, with limited means, 

 could not then go farther. The whole scheme, with respect 



