Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

1832. INTERESTING MEETING. 121 rant, though by no means contemptible human beings, was a natural emotion, and not the effect of individual caprice or erro- neous enthusiasm ; and that his feelings were exactly in unison with those I had experienced on former occasions, which had led to my undertaking the heavy charge of those Fuegians whom I brought to England. Disagreeable, indeed painful, as is even the mental contem- plation of a savage, and unwilling as we may be to consider ourselves even remotely descended from human beings in such a state, the reflection that Caesar found the Britons painted and clothed in skins, like these Fuegians, cannot fail to aug- ment an interest excited by their childish ignorance of matters familiar to civilized man, and by their healthy, independent state of existence. One of these men was just six feet high, and stout in proportion ; the others were rather shorter : their legs were straight and well formed, not cramped and mis- shapen, like those of the natives who go about in canoes; and their bodies were rounded and smooth. They expressed satis- faction or good will by rubbing or patting their own, and then our bodies ; and were highly pleased by the antics of a man belonging to the boat's crew, who danced well and was a good mimic. One of the Fuegians was so like York Minster, that he might well have passed for his brother. He asked eagerly for " cuchillo." About his eyes were circles of white paint, and his upper lip was daubed with red ochre and oil. Another man was rubbed over with black. They were (apparently) very good-humoured, talked and played with the younger ones of our party, danced, stood up back to back with our tallest men to compare heights, and began to try their strength in wrest- ling — but this I stopped. It was amusing and interesting to see their meeting with York and Jemmy, who would not acknowledge them as countrymen, but laughed at and mocked them. It was evident that both of our Fuegians understood much of the language in which the others talked ; but they would not try to interpret, alleging that they did not know enough. York betrayed this by bursting into an immoderate fit of laughter at something the oldest man told him, which