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

178 tOOD DOCTOR. why the Fuegians are always so dispersed among the islands in small family parties, why they never remain long in one place, and why a large number are not seen many days in society. They never attempt to make use of the soil by any kind of culture ; seals, birds, fish, and particularly shell-fish, being their principal subsistence; any one place, therefore, soon ceases to supply the wants of even one family ; hence they are always migratory. In a few places, where the meeting of tides causes a constant supply of fish, especially porpoises, and where the land is broken into multitudes of irregular islets and rocks, whose shores afford an almost inexhaustible quantity of shell-fish, a few families may be found at one time, numbering altogether among them from twenty to forty souls ; but even those approaches towards association are rare, and those very families are so migratory by nature, that they do not remain many months in such a spot, however productive it may be, but go wandering away among the numerous secluded inlets or sounds of their country, or repair to the outer sea-coast in search of seals, a dead whale, or fragments of some wrecked ship. During the summer they prefer the coast, as they then obtain a great quantity of eggs and young birds, besides seal, which come ashore to breed at that season ; and in the winter they retire more into the interior waters in search of shell -fish, and the small but numerous and excellent fish which they catch among the sea- weed (kelp). The substitutes for clothing, the arms, canoes, and dwell- ings of the Fuegians have been so often described already, tliat I will not tire the reader by a repetition. Some of their customs, hitherto not related, may be more interesting. There is no superiority of one over another, among the Fuegians, except that acquired gradually by age, sagacity, and daring conduct ; but the ' doctor-wizard ' of each party has much influence over his companions. Being one of the most cun- ning, as well as the most deceitful of his tribe, it was not surpris- ing that we should always have found the ' doctor' concerned in all mischief and every trouble arising out of our intercourse