CHAPTER VI. 



Trees — Leave Port Famine— -Patag-onians — Greg'ory Bay — Bysante — 

 Maria — Falkner's account of the Natives — Indians seen on the bor- 

 ders of the Otway Water, in 1829 — Maria visits the Adventure — 

 Reliji^ioiis Ceremony — Patag-onian Encampment — Tomb of a Child — 

 Women's employment — Children — Gratitude of a Native — Size of 

 Patagonians — Former accounts of their g'igantic height — Character — 

 Articles for barter — Fuegians living- with Patagonians — Ships sail — 

 Arrive at Monte Video and Rio de Janeiro. 



While detained by northerly winds, the carpenter and a 

 party of people were employed in the woods selecting and cut- 

 ting down trees to be ready for our next visit. After felling 

 thirteen trees, from twenty-four to thirty-six inches in dia- 

 meter, eight were found to be rotten at the heart ; but by 

 afterwards taking the precaution of boring the trees with an 

 augur, while standing, much trouble was saved, and fifteen 

 sound sticks of considerable diameter were cut down. We 

 found one tree, an evergreen beech, too large for any of our 

 saws : it measured twenty-one feet in girth at the base, and 

 from the height of six feet to twenty it was seventeen feet in 

 circumference ; above this height, three large arms (each from 

 thirty to forty inches in diameter), branched off from the trunk. 

 Tt is, perhaps, the very tree described by Byron in his account 

 of this place. We only once saw it equalled in size, and that 

 was by a prostrate trunk, very much decayed. 



In this interval of fine weather and northerly wind, we had 

 the thermometer as high as 58°, and the barometer ranging 

 between 29.80 and 30.00 ; but for two days before the wind 

 shifted, the alteration was predicted by a gradual descent of the 

 mercurial column, and a considerable increase of cold. On the 

 7th May, as there was some appearance of a change, we got 

 under weigh; but were hardly outside the port, when a northerly 

 wind again set in, and prevented our going farther than Fresh- 



