li
twenty-five and thirty degrees west, are, I believe, far less
subject to detention—taking the year through—than those
which adopt easterly courses. , , j
Cape St. Roque, St. Paul Rocks, Fernando Noronha, and
theRoccas, ought not to be thought of too lig h tly ; b u t in
avoiding them, and the lee current near St. Roque, many ships
have encountered the tedious calms, extremely hot weather,
frequent torrents of rain, and violent squalls, which are more
or less prevalent between the longitudes of twenty and ten
degrees west.
T o return to the Fuegians. While on our passage home
I addressed the following letter to my commanding officer and
kind friend. Captain King.
« gii-^ Beagle, at sea, Sept. 12, 1830.
“ I have the honour of reporting to you that there are now
on board of his Ma-jesty’s sloop, under my command, four
natives of Tierra del Fuego.
“ Their names and estimated ages are,
York Minster................................................
Boat Memory................................................
James Button................................................
Fuegia Basket (a g i r l ) ...............................
“ I have maintained them entirely at my own expense, and
hold myself responsible for their comfort while away from,
and for their safe return to their own co untry; and I have
now to request that, as senior officer of the Expedition, you
will consider of the possibility of some public advantage b a n g
derived from this circumstance; and of the propriety of ofler-
ing them, with tha t view, to his Majesty’s Government.
“ I f you think it proper to make the offer, I will keep them
in readiness to be removed according to your directions.
“ I am now to account for my having these Fuegians on
- board, and to explain my future views with respect to them.
“ In February last, the Beagle being moored in ‘ Towns-
hend Harbour,’ on the south-west coast of Tierra del Fuego,
I sent Mr. Matthew Murray (master), with six men, in a
wliale-boat, to Cape Desolation ; the projecting part of a small.
but high and rugged island, detached from the main land, and
twelve miles distant from Townshend Harbour.
“ Mr. Murray reached the place, and secured his party and
the boat in a cove near the cape : bu t during a very dark
night, some Fuegians, whose vicinity was not at all suspected,
approached with the dexterous cunning peculiar to savages
and stole the boat.
“ Thus deprived of the means of returning to the Beagle,
and unable to make their situation known, Mr. Murray and his
party formed a sort of canoe, or rather basket, with the
branches of trees and part of their canvas tent, and in this
machine three men made their way back to the Beagle, by his
directions: yet, although favoured by the only fine day that
occurred during the three weeks which the Beagle passed in
Townshend Harbour, this basket was twenty hours on its
passage.
“ Assistance was immediately given to the master and the
other men, and a chase for our lost boat was begun, which
lasted many days, but was unsuccessful in its object, although
much of the lost boat’s gear was found, and the women and
children of the families from whom it was recovered, were
brought on hoard as hostages. The men, excepting one of^
them, escaped from us, or were absent in our missing boat.
“ A t the end of February the Beagle anchored in Christmas
Sound ; hu t before this time all our prisoners had escaped, except
three little girls, two of whom we restored to their own tribe,
near ‘ Whale-boat Sound,’ and the other is now on board.
“ From the first canoe seen in Christmas Sound, one man
was taken as a hostage for the recovery of our boat, and to
become an interpreter and guide. He came to us with little
reluctance, and appeared unconcerned.
“ A few days afterwards, traces of our boat were found at
some wigwams on an island in Christmas Sound, and from the
families inhabiting those wigwams I took another young man,
for the same purpose as tha t above-mentioned. No useful
information respecting our lost boat was, however, gained from
them, before we were obliged to leave that coast, and she
remained the prize of their companions.