CHAPTER X 



TlERRA DEL FuEGO 



Tierra del Fuego, first arrival — Good Success Bay — An Account of 

 the Fuegians on board — Interview with the Savages — Scenery of 

 the Forests — Cape Horn — Wigwam Cove — Miserable Condition of 

 the Savages — Famines — Cannibals — Matricide — Religious Feelings 

 — Great Gale — Beagle Channel — Ponsonby Sound — Build Wig- 

 wams and settle the Fuegians — Bifurcation of the Beagle Channel 

 — Glaciers — Return to the Ship — Second Visit in the Ship to 

 the Settlement — Equality of Condition amongst the Natives. 



J~"\ECEMBER iyth, 1832. — Having now finished with 

 / J Patagonia and the Falkland Islands, I will describe 

 "•—^ our first arrival in Tierra del Fuego. A little after 

 noon we doubled Cape St. Diego, and entered the famous 

 strait of Le Maire. We kept close to the Fuegian shore, but 

 the outline of the rugged, inhospitable Statenland was visible 

 amidst the clouds. In the afternoon we anchored in the Bay 

 of Good Success. While entering we were saluted in a man- 

 ner becoming the inhabitants of this savage land. A group 

 of Fuegians partly concealed by the entangled forest, were 

 perched on a wild point overhanging the sea; and as we 

 passed by, they sprang up and waving their tattered cloaks 

 sent forth a loud and sonorous shout. The savages followed 

 the ship, and just before dark we saw their fire, and again 

 heard their wild cry. The harbour consists of a fine piece 

 of water half surrounded by low rounded mountains of clay- 

 slate, which are covered to the water's edge by one dense 

 gloomy forest. A single glance at the landscape was suf- 

 ficient to show me how widely different it was from anything 

 I had ever beheld. At night it blew a gale of wind, and 

 heavy squalls from the mountains swept past us. It would 

 have been a bad time out at sea, and we, as well as others, 

 may call this Good Success Bay. 



In the morning the Captain sent a party to communicate 

 with the Fuegians. When we came within hail, one of the 



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