Captain Stokes says, “ Our discomfort in an open boat was
very great, since we ivere all constantly wet to the skin. In
trying to double the various headlands, we were repeatedly
obliged (after hours of ineffectual struggle against sea and
wind) to desist from useless labour, and take refuge in the
nearest cove which lay to leeward.”
From the Hai-bour of Mercy, Captain Stokes attempted to
cross the Strait, on his return to the Beagle; but the sea ran
too high, and obliged him to defer his daring purpose until
the weather was more favourable.
During his absence. Lieutenant Skyring surveyed Tamar
Bay and its vicinity.
Again the Beagle weighed, and tried hard to make some
progress to the westward, but was obliged a third time to
retm-n to Tamar Bay. After another delay she just reached
Sholl Bay, under Cape Phillip, and remained there one day, to
make a plan of the anchorage, and take observations to fix its
position.
The Beagle reached the Harbour of Mercy (Separation
Harbour of Wallis and Carteret),* after a thirty days’ passage
from Port Famine, on the 15th, having visited several anchorages
on the south shore in her way. But tedious and harassing
as her progress had been, the accounts of Byron, Wallis,
Carteret, and Bougainville show that they found more difficulty,
and took more time, in their passages from Port Famine to the
western entrance of the Strait. Byron, in 1764, was forty-two
days; Wallis, in 1766, eighty-two; Carteret, in the same
year, eighty-four; and Bougainville, in 1768, forty days, in
going that short distance.
Five days were passed at this place, during which they communicated
ivith a few natives, of whom Captain Stokes remarks;
“ As might be expected from the unkindly climate in which
they dwell, the personal appearance of these Indians does not
* I t was here tha t Commodore Wallis and Captain Carteret separated,
the Dolphin going round the w o rld ; the Swallow returning to England.
Sarmiento's name of Puerto de la Misericordia, or ‘ Harbour of Mercy,’
being of p rio r date, ought doubtless to he retained.
exhibit, either in male ori female, any indications of activity or
strength. Their average height is five feet five inches ; their
habit of body is spare ; the limbs are badly turned, and deficient
in muscle; the hair of their head is black, straight,
and coarse; their beards, whiskers, and eyebrows, naturally
exceedingly scanty, are carefully plucked out ; their forehead
is low ; the nose rather prominent, ivith dilated nostrils ; their
eyes are dark, and of a moderate size ; the mouth is large,
and the under-lip thick; their teeth are small and regular,
but of had colour. They are of a dirty copper colour ;
their countenance is dull, and devoid of expression. For
protection against the rigours of these inclement regions, their
clothing is miserably suited; being only the skin of a seal,
or sea-otter, thrown over the shoulders, with the hairy side
outward.
“ The two upper corners of this skin are tied together across
the breast with a strip of sinew or skin, and a similar thong
secures it round the waist ; the skirts are brought forward so
as to be a partial covering. Their comb is a portion of the
jaw of a porpoise, and they anoint their hair with seal or whale
blubber ; for removing the beard and eyebrows they employ a
very primitive kind of tweezers, namely, two muscle shells.
They daub their bodies with a red earth, like the ruddle used
in England for marking sheep. The women, and children,
wear necklaces, formed of small shells, neatly attached by a
plaiting of the fine fibres of seal’s intestines.
“ Tlie tracts they inhabit are altogether destitute of four-
footed animals ; they have not domesticated the geese or ducks
which abound here ; of tillage they are utterly ignorant ; and
the only vegetable productions they eat are a few wild berries
and a kind of sea-weed. Their principal food consists of
muscles, limpets, and sea-eggs, and, as often as possible,
seal, sea-otter, porpoise, and whale : we often found in their
deserted dwellings bones of these animals, which had undergone
the action of fire.
“ Former voyagers have noticed the avidity with which they
swallowed the most offensive offtd, such as decaying seal-skins,