The next morning a large party went on shore, to barter for skins and
ostrich-feathers; fire-arms being refused, tobacco was in greatest
request, far more so than axes or tools. The whole population of the
toldos, men, women, and children, were arranged on a bank. It was an
amusing scene, and it was impossible not to like the so-called giants,
they were so thoroughly good-humoured and unsuspecting: they asked us
to come again. They seem to like to have Europeans to live with them;
and old Maria, an important woman in the tribe, once begged Mr. Low to
leave any one of his sailors with them. They spend the greater part of
the year here; but in summer they hunt along the foot of the
Cordillera: sometimes they travel as far as the Rio Negro 750 miles to
the north. They are well stocked with horses, each man having,
according to Mr. Low, six or seven, and all the women, and even
children, their one own horse. In the time of Sarmiento (1580), these
Indians had bows and arrows, now long since disused; they then also
possessed some horses. This is a very curious fact, showing the
extraordinarily rapid multiplication of horses in South America. The
horse was first landed at Buenos Ayres in 1537, and the colony being
then for a time deserted, the horse ran wild; [2] in 1580, only
forty-three years afterwards, we hear of them at the Strait of
Magellan! Mr. Low informs me, that a neighbouring tribe of
foot-Indians is now changing into horse-Indians: the tribe at Gregory
Bay giving them their worn-out horses, and sending in winter a few of
their best skilled men to hunt for them.
June 1st.--We anchored in the fine bay of Port Famine. It was now the
beginning of winter, and I never saw a more cheerless prospect; the
dusky woods, piebald with snow, could be only seen indistinctly,
through a drizzling hazy atmosphere. We were, however, lucky in
getting two fine days. On one of these, Mount Sarmiento, a distant
mountain 6800 feet high, presented a very noble spectacle. I was
frequently surprised in the scenery of Tierra del Fuego, at the little
apparent elevation of mountains really lofty. I suspect it is owing to
a cause which would not at first be imagined, namely, that the whole
mass, from the summit to the water's edge, is generally in full view. I
remember having seen a mountain, first from the Beagle Channel, where
the whole sweep from the summit to the base was full in view, and then
from Ponsonby Sound across several successive ridges; and it was
curious to observe in the latter case, as each fresh ridge afforded
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