184 



GUANACO MEAT 1 



■SKUNK. 



Aug. 1828: 



pounds weight ; and cost altogether ten pounds of tobacco, 

 forty biscuits, and six pocket-knives. At first a biscuit was 

 considered equivalent to forty or fifty pounds of meat ; but as 

 the demand increased, the price rose four or five hundred per 

 cent. With the Patagonians were two of Mr. Low's crew, who 

 had left him. They were Portuguese, in a miserable state, and 

 appeared to be thoroughly ashamed of being the companions of 

 such a dirty set : they could not speak English, and could give 

 us very little information. They had not then assumed the 

 Indian garb, although, from the state of their clothes, they 

 would very soon be obliged to adopt it. 



At Pecket's Harbour a few words of the native language 

 were collected, which are very different from those given by 

 Falkner, in his description of the Patagonian natives : he says 

 himself, that the language of the northern Indians differs 

 materially from that of the ' Yacana Cunnees.' 



During Lieutenant Graves''s communication with the natives, 

 at Pecket's Harbour, he obtained some interesting information 

 respecting these Indians, which will be given in a subsequent 

 part of the work. 



The Adelaide brought me a few very gratifying additions 

 to my zoological collection, among which was the Zorillo, or 

 Skunk, of the Pampas ; differing in no way whatever from the 

 species found about the River Plata, in such numbers as to 

 impregnate the air with their disagreeable odour for many miles 

 around. 



I have frequently found the scent of this offensive little ani- 

 mal distinctly perceptible when I was on board the Adventure, 

 lying at anchor about two miles from Monte Video, with the 

 wind blowing from the land.* 



* D'Azara, in his Essai sur I'Histoire Naturelle des Quadrup^des de 

 Paraguay, gives the following- account of this animal, which he calls 

 Yagouare. It burrows in the ground, eats insects, eggs, and birds, when 

 it can surprise them, and moves about the plains and fields both by day 

 and night in search of food ; brushing the ground with its body, and 

 carrying its tail horizontally. It regards not the presence of man or 

 beast; unless an attempt be made to injure or take it, when it gathers up 

 its body, bristles up the hairs of its tail, erecting it vertically ; and in 



this 



