232 
TIERRA DEL FUEGO 
CHAP. 
eagerly, they would by a simple artifice point to their young 
women or little children, as much as to say, “ If you will not 
give it me, surely you will to such as these.” 
At night we endeavoured in vain to find an uninhabited 
cove ; and at last were obliged to bivouac not far from a party 
of natives. They were very inoffensive as long as they were 
few in numbers, but in the morning (21st) being joined by 
others they showed symptoms of hostility, and we thought that 
we should have come to a skirmish. An European labours 
under great disadvantages when treating with savages like 
these who have not the least idea of the power of firearms. 
In the very act of levelling his musket he appears to the savage 
far inferior to a man armed with a bow and arrow, a spear, or 
even a sling. Nor is it easy to teach them our superiority 
except by striking a fatal blow. Like wild beasts, they do not 
appear to compare numbers ; for each individual, if attacked, 
instead of retiring, will endeavour to dash your brains out with 
a stone, as certainly as a tiger under similar circumstances 
would tear you. Captain Fitz Roy, on one occasion being 
very anxious, from good reasons, to frighten away a small 
party, first flourished a cutlass near them, at which they only 
laughed ; he then twice fired his pistol close to a native. The 
man both times looked astounded, and carefully but quickly 
rubbed his head ; he then stared awhile, and gabbled to his 
companions, but he never seemed to think of running away. 
We can hardly put ourselves in the position of these savages, 
and understand their actions. In the case of this Fuegian, the 
possibility of such a sound as the report of a gun close to his 
ear could never have entered his mind. He perhaps literally 
did not for a second know whether it was a sound or a blow, 
and therefore very naturally rubbed his head. In a similar 
manner, when a savage sees a mark struck by a bullet, it may 
be some time before he is able at all to understand how it is 
effected ; for the fact of a body being invisible from its velocity 
would perhaps be to him an idea totally inconceivable. 
Moreover, the extreme force of a bullet that penetrates a hard 
substance without tearing it, may convince the savage that it 
has no force at all. Certainly I believe that many savages of 
the lowest grade, such as these of Tierra del Fuego, have seen 
objects struck, and even small animals killed by the musket, 
