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in which we live. In 1704, the Captains Harrington and Carman, who commanded two French vessels, one from Saint Maloes, and the other from Marseilles, saw at one time seven of these giants in Possession Bay, at another time six, and at a third time they had an interview with a company of more than four hundred men, part of whom were gigantic, and part of the common stature. That Harrington and Carman reported this fact, is attested by M. Frezier, superintendant of the fortifications of Bretagne, a man well known, and universally esteemed. Frezier never saw any of these savages himself, but he says, that being upon the coast of Chili, Don Pedro Molina, Governor of the isle of Chiloë, and many other eye-witnesses, told him, that there was at a considerable distance within the country, an Indian nation, called by their neighbours Caucohues, who sometimes came down to the Spanish settlements, that were more than nine feet high, and were the same race with the Patagonians who live on the eastern coast, and have been mentioned in former relations. We are told by Reaveneau de Lussan, that the Spaniards who live upon the sea coast in South America, report that certain white Indians inhabit part of Chili, with whom they are always at war: that they are of an enormous bulk and stature, and that whenever they take a Spaniard prisoner, they force up the breast-bone, as they would the shell of a tortoise, and tear out his heart. Narborough, on the contrary, though he agrees that the Indians who inhabit the mountains near the Spanish settlements at Chili, and perpetually commit hostilities against them, are tall, expressly denies that their stature is gigantic. He had often measured the skulls and the prints of the feet of the savages on the coasts of the Streight of Magellan, which, he says, were of the common size: he had also several times seen numerous companies of them even at Port Saint Julian, and
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page xiv, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/014.html