104 APPENDIX.
opportunity of measuring one of their footsteps, which was eighteen
inches long : he also found their graves, and mentions their customs
of burying near the shore.* In 1591, Anthony Knevet, who sailed
with Sir Thomas Cavendish in his second voyage, relates that he
saw, at Port Desire, men fifteen or sixteen spans high, and that he
measured the bodies of two that had been recently buried, which
were fourteen spans long.f In 1599, Sebald de Veert, who sailed
with Admiral de Cordes, was attacked in the Strait of Magellan by
savages whom he thought to be ten or eleven feet high. He adds,
that they were of reddish colour, and had long hair.{
In the same year, Oliver Van Noort, a Dutch admiral, had a rencontre
with this gigantic race, whom he represents to be of a high
stature, and of a terrible aspect.
1614.—George Spilbergen, another Dutchman, in his passage
through the same Strait, saw a man, of a gigantic stature, climbing
a hiU as if to take a view of the ship.§ 1615.—Le Maire and
Schouten discovered some of the burying-places of the Patagonians
beneath heaps of great stones, and found in them skeletons ten or
eleven feet long.||
Mr. Fallmer supposes that formerly there existed a race of Patagonians
superior to these in size; for skeletons are often found of
far greater dimensions, pai-ticularly about the river Texeira. Perhaps
he may have heard of the old tradition of the natives mentioned
by Cieza,^ and repeated from liim by GarcUasso de la Vega,** of
certain giants having come by sea, and landed near the cape of St.
Helena, many ages before the arrival of the Europeans.
1618.—Gracias de Nodal, a Spanish commander, in the course of
his voyage, was informed by John Moore, one of his crew, who
landed between Cape St. Esprit and Cape St. Arenas, on the south
side of the Straits, that he trafficked with a race of men taller, by
the head, than the Europeans. This and the next are the only
instances I ever met with of the tall race being found on that side of
the Strait.
• Piirclias, i. 58. t Purclias, i. 1232.
J Col. Voy. by the Dutch East-India Company, &c. London, 1703,
p. 319.
§ Purchas, i, 80. || Purchas, i. 91.
t Seventeen years travels of Peter tie Cieza, 138.
• • Translated by Ricaut, p. 263.
APPENUIX. 105
if
1642.—Henry Brewer, a Dutch admiral, observed, in the Strait
Le Maire, the footsteps of men which measured eighteen inches.
This is the last evidence, in the seventeenth century, of the existence
of these tall people. But let it be observed, that out of the fifteen
first voyagers who passed through the Magellanic Straits, not
fewer than nine are undeniable witnesses of the fact we would
establish.
In the present centmy, I can produce but two evidences of the
existence of the tall Patagonians ; the one in 1704, when the crew
of a ship belonging to St. Maloes, commanded by Captain Harrington,
saw seven of these giants in Gregory Bay. Mention is also
made of six more being seen by Captain Carman, a native of the
same town, but whether in the same voyage, my authority is
silent.*
But as it was not the fortune of the four other voyagers f who
sailed through the Straits in the seventeenth centuiy, to fall in with
any of this tall race, it became a fashion to treat as fabulous the
account of the preceding nine, and to hold this lofty race as the
mere creation of a warm imagination. In such a temper was the
pubHc, on the return of Mr. Byron from his circumnavigation, in
the year 1766. I had not the honour of having personal conference
with that gentleman, therefore vrill not repeat the accounts
I have been informed he had given to several of his friends ; I rather
chuse to recapitulate that given by Mr. Clarke,} in the Philosophical
Transactions for 1767, p. 75. Mr. Clarke was officer in Mr. Byron's
ship, landed with him in the Straits of Magellan, and had for two
hours an opportunity of standing within a few yards of this race,
and seeing them examined and measured by Mr. Byron.
He represents them in general as stout and well-proportioned, and
assures us that none of the men were lower than eight feet, and that
some even exceeded nine, and that the women were from seven feet
and a half to eight feet. He saw Mr. Byron measure one of the
men, and, notwithstanding the Commodore was near six feet high,
he could, when on tip-toe, but just reach with his hand the top of
* Frezier's Voy. p. 84.
t Sir John Narborough, in 1670; Bartholomew Sliarp, in 1680; De Gennes,
in 1696; and Beauehesne Goiiin, in 1699,
i This able officer commanded the Discovery, in Capt. Cook's last voyage,
and died off Kamtschatka, August 22d, 1779.
o