construction. On the next day we pulled over again, but only
to find the hut deserted, and the party gone. We inferred,
from various circumstances connected with their disappearance,
that they must have penetrated up the Bay to the eastward,
where there are unexplored channels which, are supposed to
extend towards the base of the Cordillera.
On the next day (March 24), a strong westerly breeze, with
occasional rain-squalls, induced most of us to remain on board,
and we were not a little surprised when, about 10 a.m., a boat
under sail was reported standing across the Strait towards our
anchorage. On nearer approach it turned out to be a native
canoe, with a large sealskin hoisted in the forepart of the boat,
so as to form a sort of square sail. As the natives came alongside
to beg for biscuit and tobacco, we found that the wretched-
looking boat contained three men, five women, eleven children
(mostly very young), and five dogs. They had shipped a good
deal of water on the passage, as might be expected, and all the
wretched creatures looked as wet as fishes ; indeed, to say that
they were wet to the skin would be simply a truism in the case
of the Fuegians. We had not previously noticed so prolific a
family, the proportion of children being usually one for each
woman. I use the word “ family,” because each of these canoe
parties appears to constitute a sort of complicated family. One
young mother did not appear to be more than sixteen years
of age. I now inclined to the opinion, which subsequent experience
gave me no reason to alter, that the Channel Fuegians are
a migratory tribe, parsing the summer months about the outer
islands, where at that time of the year they may get seals, and
the eggs and young of sea-birds, and in the autumn migrating
up some of the fiords of the mainland, when the deer, driven
down the hills by the winter snows, would be within their reach.
There is no doubt that deer (probably the Cervus chilensis) have
been seen from time to time on this coast. A few years ago
the officers of one of the German steamers of the “ Kosmos ”
Mj!fl i»ii i|! Í.
'Ilf'
line, stopping at Puerto Bueno about mid-winter, captured three
or four in the immediate vicinity of the anchorage. We ourselves
never met with any, although we saw doubtful indications
of their presence; but further south we obtained portions ot
a deer from a native canoe. I was led to form the above-
mentioned idea from comparing the great number of deserted
wigwams which we encountered in our wanderings about these
channels, with the small number of natives actually seen. The
huts alluded to, moreover, bore indications of having been in
use not many months previously, when they were probably
inhabited temporarily by parties of natives on their way to
the outer coasts. Fitzroy would seem to have entertained the
same belief with reference to tribes about Smyth’s Channel,
from the fact that a party of men from his ship, when surveying
Obstruction Sound in the summer-time, discovered a large
deserted encampment containing many huts and canoes, and
showing signs of its being the site of a great periodical gathering
of the clans.
F U E G IA N S O F F E R IN G T H E IR CH ILD R EN FO R B A R T E R ( / . 74).
IIMIIfi il li