PATAGONIANS ON HORSEBACK. 



437 



poses either of conquest, colonization, pillage, or privateering; 

 and discovery had usually been the result of accident, and was 

 generally subordinate to the grand business of plunder and 

 rapine. The king at once executed his design by giving the 

 command of the Dolphin and Tamar — the former a man-of-war 

 of twenty-four guns, and the latter a sloop of sixteen — to Com- 

 modore John Byron, who had been one of the wrecked captains 

 of Anson's fleet in 1740. The vessels sailed from Plymouth 

 on the 3d of July. Nothing of moment occurred during their 

 passage to Rio Janeiro, if we except the fact that Byron noticed 

 that no fish would come near his ship, though the sea was alive 

 with them at a little distance, — a circumstance which he attri- 

 buted to the Dolphin's copper sheathing. She was the first 

 vessel upon which the experiment of coppering the bottom had 

 been tried. 



Upon the Patagonian coast, Byron saw a party of the natives 

 on horseback, one of whom, who dismounted, he describes as 

 follows: — "He was of a gigantic stature, and seemed to realize 

 the tales of monsters in human shape : he had the skin of some 

 wild beast thrown over his shoulders, as a Scotch Highlander 

 wears his plaid. Bound one eye was a large circle of white; 

 a circle of black surrounded the other, and the rest of his face 

 was streaked with paint of different colors. His height could 

 not be less than seven feet. This frightful Colossus and his 

 whole company conducted themselves in a peaceable and orderly 

 manner which certainly did them honor." Byron entered Ma- 

 gellan's Strait in December. During an anchorage here, a part 

 of the men slept on shore : they were always awakened from 

 their first slumber by the roaring of wild beasts, which the 

 darkness of the night and the loneliness of their situation 

 rendered horrible beyond description. The animals were pre- 

 vented from invading the tent by the kindling of large fires. 



Having determined to await the arrival of the Florida, — a 

 store-ship which was to follow him, — Byron returned into th<> 



