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

108 APPEKDIX. that there are more ways than one of coming at a thing — that the commerce between Sheffield and South America, through the port of Cadiz, is most uncommonly large — and that his Indians might have got their knives from the Spaniards, at the same time that they got their gilt nails and Spanish harness. But for farther satisfaction on this subject, I have liberty to say, from Mr. Byron's authority, that he never gave a single knife to the people he saw — that he had not one at that time about him — that, excepting the presents given with liis ovra hands, and the tobacco brought by Lieutenant Cummins, not the least trifle was bestowed. I am" fur- nished with one other proof that these lesser Indians, whom Mr. WalKs saw, were not the same as those described by Mr. Byron, as has been insinuated ; for the first had with him some officers who had been wdth him on the preceding voyage, and who bear vntness not only to the difference of size, but declare that these people had not a single article among them given by Mr. Byron.* It is extremely probable that these were the Indians that Mr. Bougain- ville fell in with ; for they were furnished with bits, a Spanish scymeter, and brass stirrups, as before-mentioned. My last evidence of these gigantic Americans is that which I received from Mr. Falkner : he acquainted me that, about the j^ear 1742, he was sent on a mission to the vast plains of Pampas, which, if I recollect right, he to the south-west of Buenos Ayres, and extend near a thousand miles towards the Andes. In these plains he first met with some tribes of these people, and was taken under the protection of one of the caciques. The remarks he made on their size were as follows : — that the tallest, which he measured in the same manner that Mr. Byron did, was seven feet eight inches high — that the common height, or middle size, was six feet — that there were numbers that were even shorter — and that the tallest woman did not exceed sue feet ; that they were scattered from the foot of the Andes over that vast tract which extends to the Atlantic Ocean, and are found as far as the Red River, at Bay Anegada, lat. 40°. 1' ; below that the land is too barren to be habitable, and none are found, except accidental migrants, till you arrive 9X the river Gallego, near the Straits of Magellan. " M. Frezier was assured by Don Pedro Molino, Governor of * See Mr. Byron's letter at the end.