short, thick, powerful man: his disposition was reserved, taciturn,
morose, and when excited violently passionate; his affections were very
strong towards a few friends on board; his intellect good. Jemmy
Button was a universal favourite, but likewise passionate; the
expression of his face at once showed his nice disposition. He was
merry and often laughed, and was remarkably sympathetic with any one in
pain: when the water was rough, I was often a little sea-sick, and he
used to come to me and say in a plaintive voice, "Poor, poor fellow!"
but the notion, after his aquatic life, of a man being sea-sick, was
too ludicrous, and he was generally obliged to turn on one side to hide
a smile or laugh, and then he would repeat his "Poor, poor fellow!" He
was of a patriotic disposition; and he liked to praise his own tribe
and country, in which he truly said there were "plenty of trees," and
he abused all the other tribes: he stoutly declared that there was no
Devil in his land. Jemmy was short, thick, and fat, but vain of his
personal appearance; he used always to wear gloves, his hair was neatly
cut, and he was distressed if his well-polished shoes were dirtied. He
was fond of admiring himself in a looking glass; and a merry-faced
little Indian boy from the Rio Negro, whom we had for some months on
board, soon perceived 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 wonderful 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 anything, 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 difficulty 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
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