236 
TIERRA DEL FUEGO 
CHAP. 
that they had been frightened by our cleaning and firing off 
our muskets on the previous evening: by others, that it was 
owing to offence taken by an old savage, who, when told to 
keep farther off, had coolly spit in the sentry’s face, and had 
then, by gestures acted over a sleeping Fuegian, plainly showed, 
as it was said, that he should like to cut up and eat our man. 
Captain Fitz Roy, to avoid the chance of an encounter, which 
would have been fatal to so many of the Fuegians, thought it 
advisable for us to sleep at a cove a few miles distant. 
Matthews, with his usual quiet fortitude (remarkable in a man 
apparently possessing little energy of character), determined to 
stay with the Fuegians, who evinced no alarm for themselves ; 
and so we left them to pass their first awful night. 
On our return in the morning (28th) we were delighted to find 
all quiet, and the men employed in their canoes spearing fish. 
Captain Fitz Roy determined to send the yawl and one whale¬ 
boat back to the ship ; and to proceed with the two other boats, 
one under his own command (in which he most kindly allowed 
me to accompany him), and one under Mr. Hammond, to survey 
the western parts of the Beagle Channel, and afterwards to return 
and visit the settlement. The day to our astonishment was 
overpoweringly hot, so that our skins were scorched ; with this 
beautiful weather, the view in the middle of the Beagle Channel 
was very remarkable. Looking towards either hand, no object 
intercepted the vanishing points of this long canal between the 
mountains. The circumstance of its being an arm of the sea 
was rendered very evident by several huge whales 1 spouting in 
different directions. On one occasion I saw two of these 
monsters, probably male and female, slowly swimming one after 
the other, within less than a stone’s throw of the shore, over 
which the beech-tree extended its branches. 
We sailed on till it was dark, and then pitched our tents in a 
quiet creek. The greatest luxury was to find for our beds a 
beach of pebbles, for they were dry and yielded to the body. 
Peaty soil is damp ; rock is uneven and hard ; sand gets into 
one’s meat, when cooked and eaten boat-fashion ; but when lying 
1 One day, off the east coast of Tierra del Fuego, we saw a grand sight in several 
spermaceti whales jumping upright quite out of the water, with the exception of their 
tail-fins. As they fell down sideways, they splashed the water high up, and the 
sound reverberated like a distant broadside. 
