THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 223 



ceived this, and used to mock him : Jemmy, who was always 

 rather jealous of the attention paid to this little boy, did not 

 at all like this, and used to say, with rather a contemptuous 

 twist of his head, " Too much skylark." It seems yet wonder- 

 ful to me, when I think over all his many good qualities, 

 that he should have been of the same race, and doubtless 

 partaken of the same character, with the miserable, degraded 

 savages whom we first met here. Lastly, Fuegia Basket was 

 a nice, modest, reserved young girl, with a rather pleasing but 

 sometimes sullen expression, and very quick in learning any- 

 thing, especially languages. This she showed in picking up 

 some Portuguese and Spanish, when left on shore for only 

 a short time at Rio de Janeiro and Monte Video, and in her 

 knowledge of English. York Minster was very jealous of 

 any attention paid to her; for it was clear he determined to 

 marry her as soon as they were settled on shore. 



Although all three could both speak and understand a 

 good deal of English, it was singularly difficult to obtain 

 much information from them, concerning the habits of their 

 countrymen; this was partly owing to their apparent diffi- 

 culty in understanding the simplest alternative. Every one 

 accustomed to very young children, knows how seldom one 

 can get an answer even to so simple a question as whether a 

 thing is black or white; the idea of black or white seems 

 alternately to fill their minds. So it was with these Fuegians, 

 and hence it was generally impossible to find out, by cross- 

 questioning, whether one had rightly understood anything 

 which they had asserted. Their sight was remarkably acute ; 

 it is well known that sailors, from long practice, can make 

 out a distant object much better than a landsman; but both 

 York and Jemmy were much superior to any sailor on board : 

 several times they have declared what some distant object 

 has been, and though doubted by every one, they have proved 

 right, when it has been examined through a telescope. They 

 were quite conscious of this power; and Jemmy, when he 

 had any little quarrel with the officer on watch, would say, 

 " Me see ship, me no tell." 



It was interesting to watch the conduct of the savages, 

 when we landed, towards Jemmy Button: they immediately 

 perceived the difference between him and ourselves, and held 



