98 



FORMER ACCOUNTS OF PATAGONIANS. 



(which is contained in Purchas), is not considered credible. He 

 describes the Patagonians to be fifteen or sixteen spans in height ; 

 and that of these cannibals, there came to them at one time 

 above a thousand ! The Indians at Port Famine, in the same 

 narrative, are mentioned as a kind of strange cannibals, short 

 of body, not above five or six spans high, very strong, and 

 thick made.* 



The natives, who were so inhumanly murdered by Oliver 

 Van Noort, on the Island of Santa Marta (near Elizabeth 

 Island), were described to be nearly of the same stature as the 

 common people in Holland, and were remarked to be broad 

 and high-chested. Some captives were taken on board, and one, 

 a boy, informed tlie crew that there was a tribe living farther 

 in-land, named ' Tiremenen,' and their territory ' Coin 

 that they were " great people, like giants, being from ten to 

 twelve feet high, and that they came to make war against 

 the other tribes,-}- whom they reproached for being eaters of 

 ostriches 



Spilbergen (1615) says he " saw a man of extraordinary 

 stature, who kept on the higher grounds to observe the ships ; 

 and on an island, near the entrance of the Strait, were found 

 the dead bodies of two natives, wrapped in the skins of pen- 

 guins, and very lightly covered with earth ; one of them was 

 of the common human stature, the other, the journal says, 

 was two feet and a half longer.§ The gigantic appearance of 

 the man on the hills may perhaps be explained by the optical 

 deception we ourselves experienced. 



Le Maire and Schouten, whose accounts of the graves of 

 the Patagonians agree precisely with what we noticed at Sea 

 Bear Bay, of the body being laid on the ground covered with 



* Burney, ii. p. 106. 



t The tribes described by this boy are the 



1. Kemenites, inhabiting' a place called Karay. 



2. Kennekas Karamay. 



3. Karaike .o.. Morine. 



4. Enoo, the tribe to which the Indians, whom they murdered, 



belong'ed. 



: Burney, ii. 215. § Ibid. ii. 334. 



