100 



FORMER ACCOUNTS OF PATAGONIA NS. 



ever beheld : round one eye was a large circle of white, a circle 

 of black surrounded the other, and the rest of his body was 

 streaked with paint of different colours. I did not measure 

 him ; but if I may judge of his height by the proportion of 

 his stature to my own, it could not be less than seven feet. 

 When this frightful colossus came up, we muttered somewhat 

 to each other as a salutation, &c."* After this he mentions a 

 woman " of most enormous size and again, when Mr. Gum- 

 ming, the lieutenant, joined him, the commodore says, " Before 

 the song was finished, Mr. Gumming came up with the tobacco, 

 and I could not but smile at the astonishment which I saw 

 expressed in his countenance upon perceiving himself, though 

 six feet two inches high, become at once a pigmy among giants, 

 for these people may, indeed, more properly be called giants 

 than tall men : of the few among us who are full six feet high, 

 scarcely any are broad and muscular, in proportion to their 

 stature, but look rather like men of the common bulk grown 

 up accidentally to an unusual height ; and a man who should 

 measure only six feet two inches, and equally exceed a stout 

 well-set man of the common stature in breadth and muscle, 

 would strike us rather as being of a gigantic race, than as an 

 individual accidentally anomalous ; our sensations, therefore, 

 upon seeing five hundred people, the shortest of whom were 

 at least four inches taller, and bulky in proportion, may be 

 easily imagined 



This account was published only seven years after the 

 voyage, and the exaggeration, if any, might have been exposed 

 by numbers. There can be no doubt, that among five hundred 

 persons several were of a large size; but that all were four 

 inches taller than six feet must have been a mistake. The com- 

 modore says, that he caused them all to be seated,"" and 

 in that position, from the length of their bodies, they would 

 certainly appear to be of very large stature. J 



* Hawkswortli's Coll. i 28. f Ibid. 



I See a letter from Mr. Charles Clarke, an officer on board the Dol- 

 phin, to Mr. Maly, M.D., secretary of the Royal Society, dated Nov. 3, 

 17<^(^, read before the Royal Society on 12th April 17G7, and published in 



the 



