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

138 SOUTHERN ABORIGINES. canoes, injures the shape and size of their legs, and causes them to move about in a stooping manner, with the knees much bent ; yet they are very nimble, and rather strong. They suffer very little hair to grow, excepting on their heads. Even their eyebrows are almost eradicated— two muscle- shells serving for pincers. This aversion to the smaller tufts of hair does not extend to the thatch-like covering of their ugly heads, which is lank, covered with dirt, hanging about their ears, and almost over their faces. Just above their eyes it is jagged away by a broken shell, if they have not a piece of iron hoop for a knife, the pieces cut off being scrupulously burned. In height varying from four feet ten to five feet six, yet in the size of their bodies equalling men of six feet, of course they look clumsy and ill-proportioned ; but their hands and feet are rather small with respect to the size of their bodies, though not so in proportion to their limbs and joints, which, excepting the knees, are small. Their knees are all strained, and their legs injured in shape, by the habit of squatting upon their heels. Awkward and difficult as such a posture appears to us, it is to them a position of easy rest. Sometimes these satires upon mankind wear a part of the skin of a guanaco or a seal-skin upon their backs, and perhaps the skin of a penguin or a bit of hide hangs in front ; but often there is nothing, either to hide their nakedness or to preserve warmth, excepting a scrap of hide, which is tied to the side or back of the body, by a string round the waist. Even this is only for a pocket, in which they may carry stones for their slings, and hide what they pick up or pilfer. A man always carries his sling around his neck or waist, wherever he goes. Women wear rather more clothing, that is, they have nearly a whole skin of a guanaco, or seal, wrapped about them, and usually a diminutive apron. The upper part of the wrapper, above a string which is tied around the waist, serves to carry an infant. Neither men nor women have any substitute for shoes. No ornaments are worn in the nose, ears, or lips, nor on the fingers ; but of necklaces, and bracelets, such as they are, the women are very fond. With small diclls, or pieces of the bones j