the wife a brutal master to a laborious slave. Was a more horrid deed
ever perpetrated, than that witnessed on the west coast by Byron, who
saw a wretched mother pick up her bleeding dying infant-boy, whom her
husband had mercilessly dashed on the stones for dropping a basket of
sea-eggs! How little can the higher powers of the mind be brought into
play: what is there for imagination to picture, for reason to compare,
or judgment to decide upon? to knock a limpet from the rock does not
require even cunning, that lowest power of the mind. Their skill in
some respects may be compared to the instinct of animals; for it is not
improved by experience: the canoe, their most ingenious work, poor as
it is, has remained the same, as we know from Drake, for the last two
hundred and fifty years.
Whilst beholding these savages, one asks, whence have they come? What
could have tempted, or what change compelled a tribe of men, to leave
the fine regions of the north, to travel down the Cordillera or
backbone of America, to invent and build canoes, which are not used by
the tribes of Chile, Peru, and Brazil, and then to enter on one of the
most inhospitable countries within the limits of the globe? Although
such reflections must at first seize on the mind, yet we may feel sure
that they are partly erroneous. There is no reason to believe that the
Fuegians decrease in number; therefore we must suppose that they enjoy
a sufficient share of happiness, of whatever kind it may be, to render
life worth having. Nature by making habit omnipotent, and its effects
hereditary, has fitted the Fuegian to the climate and the productions
of his miserable country.
After having been detained six days in Wigwam Cove by very bad weather,
we put to sea on the 30th of December. Captain Fitz Roy wished to get
westward to land York and Fuegia in their own country. When at sea we
had a constant succession of gales, and the current was against us: we
drifted to 57 degs. 23' south. On the 11th of January, 1833, by
carrying a press of sail, we fetched within a few miles of the great
rugged mountain of York Minster (so called by Captain Cook, and the
origin of the name of the elder Fuegian), when a violent squall
compelled us to shorten sail and stand out to sea. The surf was
breaking fearfully on the coast, and the spray was carried over a cliff
estimated to 200 feet in height. On the 12th the gale was very heavy,
and we did not know exactly where we were: it was a most unpleasant
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