APPENDIX. 



105 



' 1642. — Henry Brewer, a Dutch admiral, observed, in the Strait 

 Le Maire, the footsteps of men which measured eighteen inches. 

 This is the last evidence, in the seventeenth century, of the existence 

 of these tall people. But let it be observed, that out of the fifteen 

 first voyagers who passed through the Magellanic Straits, not 

 fewer than nine are undeniable witnesses of the fact we would 

 establish. 



In the present century, I can produce but two evidences of the 

 existence of the tall Patagonians ; the one in 1704, when the crew 

 of a ship belonging to St. Maloes, commanded by Captain Harring- 

 ton, saw seven of these giants in Gregory Bay. Mention is also 

 made of six more being seen by Captain Carman, a native of the 

 same town, but whether in the same voyage, my authority is 

 silent.* 



But as it was not the fortune of the four other voyagers f who 

 sailed through the Straits in the seventeenth century, to fall in with 

 any of this tall race, it became a fashion to treat as fabulous the 

 account of the preceding nine, and to hold this lofty race as the 

 mere creation of a warm imagination. In such a temper was the 

 public, on the return of Mr. Byron from his circumnavigation, in 

 the year 1766. I had not the honour of having personal confer- 

 ence with that gentleman, therefore wiU not repeat the accounts 

 I have been informed he had given to several of his friends ; I rather 

 chuse to recapitulate that given by Mr. Clarke, J in the Philosophical 

 Transactions for 1767, p. 75. Mr. Clarke was officer in Mr. Byron's 

 ship, landed with him in the Straits of Magellan, and had for two 

 hours an opportunity of standing within a few yards of this race, 

 and seeing them examined and measured by Mr. Byron. 



He represents them in general as stout and well-proportioned, and 

 assures us that none of the men were lower than eight feet, and that 

 some even exceeded nine, and that the women were from seven feet 

 and a half to eight feet. He saw Mr. Byron measure one of the 

 men, and, notwithstanding the Commodore was near six feet high, 

 he could, when on tip-toe, but just reach with his hand the top of 



* Frezier's Voy. p. 84. 



t Sir John Narborough, in 1670; Bartholomew Sharp, in 1680; De Gennes, 

 in 1696; and Beauchesne Goiiin, in 1699, 



This able officer commanded the Discovery, in Capt. Cook's last voyage, 

 and died off Kamtschatka, August 22d, 1770. 



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