bones; the women both upon their wrifts and ancles, the men upon their wrists only; but to compenfate for the want of bracelets on their legs, they wore a kind of fillet of brown worfted round their heads. They féemed to fer a particular value upon any thing that was red, and preferred beads even to a knife or a hatchet. Their language in general is guttural, and they express some of their words by a found exactly like that which we make to clear the throat when any thing happens to obftruct it; yet they have words that would be deemed foft in the better languages of Europe. Mr. Banks learnt what he fuppofes to be their name for beads and water. When they wanted beads, instead of ribbons or other trifles, they faid bal lecă; and when they were taken on fhore from the ship, and by figns afked where water might be found, they made the fign of drinking, and pointing as well to the cafks as the wateringplace, cried Obda. We faw no appearance of their having any food but shell-fifh; for though feals were frequently feen near the shore, they seemed to have no implements for taking them. The fhell fish is collected by the women, whose business it feems to be to attend at low water, with a basket in one hand, and a ftick, pointed and barbed, in the other, and a fatchel at their backs: they loofen the limpets, and other fifh that adhere to U 2 the 1769. January. 1769. January. the rocks with the stick, and put them into the basket; which, when full, they empty into the fatchel. The only things that we found among them in which there was the least appearance of neatnefs or ingenuity, were their weapons, which confifted of a bow and arrows. The bow was not inelegantly made, and the arrows were the neatest that we had ever feen: they were of wood, polished to the highest degree; and the point, which was of glass or flint, and barbed, was formed and fitted with wonderful dexterity. We faw alfo fome pieces of glafs and flint among them unwrought, befides rings, buttons, cloth, and canvas, with other European commodities; they must therefore fometimes travel to the northward, for it is many years fince any ship has been fo far fouth as this part of Terra del Fuego. We obferved also, that they fhewed no furprise at our fire-arms, with the use of which they appeared to be well acquainted; for they made figns to Mr. Banks to fhoot a feal which followed the boat, as they were going on fhore from the ship. M. de Bougainville, who, in January 1768, just one year before us, had been on shore upon this coaft in latitude 53° 40′ 41′′, had, among other things, given glass to the people whom he found here; for he fays, that a boy about twelve years old took it into his head to eat fome fome of it by this unhappy accident he died in great mifery; but the endeavours of the good father, the French Aumonier, were more fuccefsful than thofe of the furgeon; for though the furgeon could not fave his life, the charitable Priest found means to fteal a Christian baptifin upon him so fecretly, that none of his Pagan relations knew any thing of the matter. Thefe people might probably have fome of the very glafs which Bougainville left behind him, either from other natives, or perhaps from himself; for they appeared rather to be a travelling hord, than to have any fixed habitation. Their houfes are built to stand but for a fhort time; they have no utenfil or furniture but the basket and fatchel, which have been mentioned before, and which have handles adapted to the carrying them about, in the hand and upon the back; the only clothing they had here was scarcely fufficient to prevent their perishing with cold in the fummer of this country, much less in the extreme severity of winter; the fhell-fifh, which feems to be their only food, muft foon be exhausted at any one place; and we had feen houses upon what appeared to be a deferted ftation in St. Vincent's bay. It is alfo probable that the place where we found them was only a temporary residence, from their having here nothing like a boat or canoe, of which it can scarcely be supposed that they Úž 1769. January. were 1769. January. were wholly deftitute, especially as they were not fea-fick, or particularly affected, either in our boat or on board the ship. We conjectured that there might be a streight or inlet, running from the fea through great part of this island, from the Streight of Magellan, whence these people might come, leaving their canoes where fuch inlet terminated. They did not appear to have among them any government or fubordination: none was more refpected than another; yet they seemed to live together in the utmost harmony and good fellowship. Neither did we difcover any appearance of religion among them, except the noifes which have been mentioned, and which we supposed to be a fuperftitious ceremony, merely because we could refer them to nothing else: they were used only by one of those who came on board the hip, and the two who conducted Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander to the town, whom we therefore conjectured to be priests. Upon the whole, thefe people appeared to be the most deftitute and forlorn, as well as the most stupid of all human beings; the outcasts of Nature, who spent their lives in wandering about the dreary waftes, where two of our people perished with cold in the midst of fummer; with no dwelling but a wretched hovel of sticks and grafs, which would not only admit the wind, but the snow and the rain; almost naked; and and deftitute of every convenience that is furnished by the rudeft art, having no implement even to dress their food: yet they were content. They feemed to have no with for any thing more than they possessed, nor did any thing that we offered them appear acceptable but beads, as an ornamental fuperfluity of life. What bodily pain they might fuffer from the feverities of their winter we could not know; but it is certain, that they fuffered nothing from the want of the innumerable articles which we confider, not as the luxuries and conveniencies only, but the neceffaries of life: as their defires are few, they probably enjoy them all; and how much they may be gainers by an exemption from the care, labour, and folicitude, which arife from a perpetual and unsuccessful effort to gratify that infinite variety of defires which the refinements of artificial life have produced among us, is not very easy to determine: poffibly this may counterbalance all the real difadvantages of their fituation in comparison with ours, and make the fcales by which good and evil are distributed to man, hang even between us. In this place we faw no quadruped except feals, fea-lions, and dogs; of the dogs it is remarkable that they bark, which thofe that are originally bred in America do not. And this is a further proof, that the people we saw here had, either immediately or remotely, communicated 1769. January. |