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

SOUTHKEN AliOKIGINES. 135 whom he saw. Ever restless and wandering, as were the Tehuel-het, of which tribes that cacique was chief, might not Byron have measured Cangapol ? * Who disbelieves that the Roman Emperor, Maximinus, by birth a Thracian, was more than eight feet in height? yet who, in consequence^ expects all Thracians to be giants ? At present, among two or three hundred natives of Patagonia, scarcely half-a-dozen men are seen whose height is under five feet nine or ten ; and the women are tall in proportion. I have nowhere met an assemblage of men and women whose average height and apparent bulk approached to that of the Patagonians. Tall and athletic as are many of the natives of Otaheite, and other islands in the Pacific Ocean, there are also many among them who are slight, and of low stature. The Patagonians seem high-shouldered — owing perhaps to the habit of folding their arms in their mantles across the chest, and thus increasing their apparent height and bulk, as the mantles hang loosely, and almost touch the ground. Until actually measured, I could not believe that they were not much taller than was found to be the fact. But little hair shews itself on their faces or bodies. From the former it is studiously removed by two shells, or some kind of pincers. Although they do not augment the coarse- ness of their features by piercing either nose or lips, they dis- figure themselves not a little by red,-f- black,;!: or white§ paint, with which they make grotesque ornaments, such as circles around their eyes, or great daubs across their faces. Upon particular occasions, all the upper part of their body, from the waist upwards, is strangely decorated (or disfigured) by paint, awkwardly laid on with very little design. On their feet and legs are boots made out of the skins of horses' legs. Wooden spurs, if they cannot get iron ; sets of balls (bolas), and a long tapering lance of bamboo, pointed with iron, complete their equipment. These lances are seldom seen near the Strait of Magalhaens, but the natives are not always without them. The women are dressed and booted hke the men, with the * Byron's \'oyage, 1765. — Falkner, 1740-80. t Ochie. X Charcoal and oil. § Felspathic earth and oil.