The Streight of Magellan
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with a keen appetite and great seeming satisfaction. Their complexion was the same as that of the people we had seen before, but they were low of stature, the tallest of them not being more than five foot six: they appeared to be perishing with cold, and immediately kindled several fires. How they subsist in winter, it is not perhaps easy to guess, for the weather was at this time so severe, that we had frequent falls of snow. They were armed with bows, arrows, and javelins: the arrows and javelins were pointed with flint, which was wrought into the shape of a serpent’s tongue; and they discharged both with great force and dexterity. Scarce ever failing to hit a mark at a considerable distance. To kindle a fire they strike a pebble against a piece of mundic, holding under it, to catch the sparks, some moss or down, mixed with a whitish earth, which takes fire like tinder: they then take some dry grass, of which there is every where plenty, and putting the lighted moss into it, wave it to and fro, and in about a minute it blazes.
When the boat returned she brought three of them on board the ship, but they seemed to regard nothing with any degree of curiosity except our cloaths and a looking-glass; the looking-glass afforded them as much diversion as it had done the Patagonians, and it seemed to surprize them more; when they first peeped into it they started back, first looking at us, and then at each other; they then took another peep, as it were by stealth, starting back as before, and then eagerly looking behind it: when by degrees they became familiar with it, they smiled, and seeing the image smile in return, they were exceedingly delighted, and burst, into fits of the most violent laughter. They left this however, and every thing else with perfect indifference, the little they possessed being to all appearance equal to their desires. They
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 391, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/391.html