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

98 FORMER ACCOUNTS OF PATAGOKIANS. (which is contained in Purchas), is not considered credible. He describes the Patagonians to be fifteen or sixteen spans in height and that of these cannibals, there came to them at one time above a thousand ! The Indians at Port Famine, in the same narrative, are mentioned as a kind of strange cannibals, short of body, not above five or six spans high, very strong, and thick made.* The natives, who were so inhumanly murdered by Oliver Van Noort, on the Island of Santa Marta (near Elizabeth Island), were described to be nearly of the same statui'e as the common people in Holland, and were remarked to be broad and high-chested. Some captives were taken on board, and one, a boy, informed the crew that there was a tribe living farther in-land, named ' Tiremenen,' and their territory ' Coin ;' that they were " great people, like giants, being from ten to twelve feet high, and that they came to make war against the other tribes,-f- whorn they reproached for being eaters of ostriches .'"J Spilbergen (1615) says he " saw a man of extraordinary stature, who kept on the higher grounds to observe the ships and on an island, near the entrance of the Strait, were found the dead bodies of two natives, wrapped in the skins of pen- guins, and very lightly covered with earth ; one of them was of the common human stature, the other, the journal says, was two feet and a half longer.! The gigantic appearance of the man on the hills may perhaps be explained by the optical deception we ourselves experienced. Le Maire and Schouten, whose accounts of the graves of the Patagonians agree precisely with what we noticed at Sea Bear Bay, of the body being laid on the ground covered with * Bumey, ii. p. 106. t The tribes described by this boy are the 1. Kemenites, inhabiting a place called Karay. 2. Kennekas Karamay. 3. Karaike Morine. 4. Enoo, the tribe to which the Indians, whom they murdered, belonged. : Burney, il 215. § Ibid. ii. 334.