Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.1): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

Feb. 1827. passages — natives, 75 exhibit, either in male or 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 defi- cient 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, with 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 bad 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 })laiting of the fine fibres of seal's intestines. " The 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 under- gone the action of fire. " Former voyagers have noticed the avidity with which they swallowed the most offensive offal, such as decaying seal-skins.