2 l6 
TIERRA DEL FUEGO 
CHAP. 
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 sufficient 
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 four 
natives who were present advanced to receive us, and began to 
shout most vehemently, wishing to direct us where to land. 
When we were on shore the party looked rather alarmed, but 
continued talking and making gestures with great rapidity. It 
was without exception the most curious and interesting spectacle 
I ever beheld : I could not have believed how wide was the dif¬ 
ference between savage and civilised man : it is greater than 
between a wild and domesticated animal, inasmuch as in man 
there is a greater power of improvement. The chief spokesman 
was old, and appeared to be the head of the family ; the three 
others were powerful young men, about six feet high. The 
women and children had been sent away. These Fuegians are a 
very different race from the stunted, miserable wretches farther 
westward ; and they seem closely allied to the famous Patago¬ 
nians of the Strait of Magellan. Their only garment consists of 
a mantle made of guanaco skin, with the wool outside ; this they 
wear just thrown over their shoulders, leaving their persons as 
often exposed as covered. Their skin is of a dirty coppery red 
colour. 
The old man had a fillet of white feathers tied round his head, 
which partly confined his black, coarse, and entangled hair. 
Ft is face was crossed by two broad transverse bars ; one, painted 
bright red, reached from ear to ear and included the upper lip ; 
the other, white like chalk, extended above and parallel to the 
first, so that even his eyelids were thus coloured. The other 
two men were ornamented by streaks of black powder, made of 
