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

AFfEXDIX. 107 Magellan during his passage.* He represents them as a fine and friendly people, clothed in skins, and on their legs a sort of boots ; and many of them tied their hair, which was long and black, with a sort of woven stuff of the breadth of a garter, made of some kind of wool ; that their arms were slings, formed of tw^o round balls fastened one to each end of a cord, which they fling with great force and dexterity. He adds : " They hold one ball in their hand, and swing the other, at the full length of the cord, round their head, by which it acquires a prodigious velocity ; they will fling it to a great distance, and with such exactness, as to strike a very small object." These people were also mounted on horses ; their saddles, bridles, &c., were of their omti making ; some had iron, and others metal bits to their bridles, and one had a Spanish broad-sword ; but whether the last articles were taken by war, or procured by com- merce, is uncertain ; but the last is most probable. It seems evident that they had intercourse with Europeans, and had even adopted some of their fashions, for many had cut their dress into the form of Spanish ponchos, or a square piece of cloth with a hole cut for the head, the rest hanging loose as low as their knees ; they also wore drawers. — So these people had attained a few steps farther towards ci^^Hzation than their gigantic neighbours ; others, again, wiU appear to have made a far greater advance, for these still de- voured their meat raw, and drank nothing but water. M. Bougainville, in the same year, saw another party of the natives of Patagonia. He measured several of them, and declares that none were lower than five feet five inches French, or taller than five feet ten ; i. e. five feet ten, or six feet three, English measure. He concludes his account with saying, that he afterwards met with a taller people in the South Sea, but I do not recollect that he mentions the place. I am sorry to be obhged to remark, in these voyages, a very illiberal propensity to cavil at and invahdate the account given by Mr. Byron, but at the same time exult in having had an opportunity given me by that gentleman of vindicating his and the national honour. M. Bougainville, in order to prove that he fell in with the identical people that Mr. B)rron conversed with, asserts that he saw numbers of them possessed of knives of an Enghsh manufactory, certainly given them by Mr. Byron. But he should have considered « Phil. Trans. 1770, p. 21. Hawkesworth's Voy. vol. i. 374. o "i