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two, and as it is tolerably thick the natives prefer it for their
spear-heads ; but for the arrow-heads they use the black glass.
Crown-glass was easy to work, but flaked off in rather short
pieces. I also experimented with some black flint, which happened
to be on board, and found it could be worked in precisely the
same way as the glass, but was certainly more difficult to fashion
into shape. Then I tried different kinds of working tools, and
soon found, to my surprise, that hard steel was the worst of all,
for it scratched and slipped off the edge of the glass without
chipping it at all ; whereas soft iron, which was much preferable,
could be manipulated so that it would bite only the extreme edge
of the glass, and by this means very thin and broad flakes could
be detached. Even an old bone harpoon-head answered very
well indeed, but of course was worn away more rapidly than the
soft iron.
One day, when the old man of the first canoe party was on
board, and in an amiable mood, I succeeded in getting some
Fuegian words from him, a matter often previously attempted in
vain. As a rule, they merely repeat— and that most accurately__
the gestures or ejaculations which one makes in drawing their
attention to any particular object. I brought this old fellow into
my workshop, and pointed out to him several objects which I had
collected in the straits, and which were sure to be familiar to him.
After some time he got fairly hold of the idea, and then became
very communicative, eventually giving me the names for all the
familiar objects which I could at the time comm.and. I subsequently
checked the vocabulary thus obtained, by reversing the
process and repeating the words to him, and making him indicate
their meaning, and in this way I made certain that my list, small
though it was, had at all events the merit of being accurate. In
fact, I tested some of the words afterwards on another party of
natives, whom we met at Port GalUnt, and found that they went
off all right
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