FLAGRANT ACT OF CRUELTY. 



329 



Within they found a number of wretched mothers who had 

 formed barricades of their own bodies to protect their children. 

 Of these they killed several and wounded more. Seven weeks 

 after, as has been said, Sebald de Weert found the tribe ex- 



AFFRAY BETWEEN THE DUTCH AND PATAGONIANS. 



terminated and but one woman surviving. Six children were 

 taken by Van Noort on board of the fleet. One of the boys 

 afterwards learned to speak the Dutch language, and from him 

 Were obtained several slender items of information respecting 

 the tribe to which he had belonged, but which were far from 

 compensating for the flagrant act of cruelty which had led to 

 the capture of his fellow-exiles and himself. 



The men went ashore near Cape Froward, and some of them 

 ate of an herb, which drove them "raging mad." During an 

 anchorage here, the carpenters built a boat thirty-seven feet 

 long in the keel ; the blacksmith set up his forge, while the 

 wooders made charcoal from trees which they felled. A light 

 wind springing up, the vice-admiral, without receiving orders. 



