ing countenance, very open and cheerful; so also had one of the men, and he often in our after intercourse laughed heartily. I had taken some comfort to my mind, from the favorable aspect which the islands around us, particularly Picton and Garden Islands, presented; but now my heart swelled with emotion, full of pleasure and satisfaction that our errand was for the purpose of imparting benefits so great and so much needed to these poor creatures. I hailed the prospect with a degree of rapture."

Such was the cheerful spirit with which Mr Williams surveyed the field of his destined labors. But he made its acquaintance under great advantages. Being December, it was the Antarctic midsummer; and, like the climate, the natives wore their best faces. They wanted food and trinkets from the strangers; and as long as their visitors remained on ship-board they were safe from tricks and violence. But, before proceeding with the narrative, it may be well to introduce the reader to the place and the people. We shall thus better understand how arduous was the task which these pious pilgrims had undertaken, and shall be able to sympathise more fully in the great fight of afflictions which they were soon to pass through.

G

CHAPTER VI.

Fuegia.

TH' eternal Monarch from on high
Cast on the sons of earth his eye,
If haply some he yet might see
True to their God, from error free.

He look'd; but ah! not one could find
To virtue's Heaven-taught rules inclined;
Each, led from wisdom's path astray,
Pursues the tenor of his way.

Psalm liii. 2, 3.-Merrick.

What renders it much more difficult to convey divine truths to the understandings of these Indians, is, that there seems to be no foundation in their minds to begin upon. Besides, their inconvenient situations, savage manners, and unhappy method of living, have been an unspeakable difficulty and discouragement to me in my work.— David Brainerd.

THE outline of South America may be compared to a paper kite; and, like a kite, there is attached to its apex a jointed tail, of which Fuegia and the South Shetlands are the only fragments seen above water. In other words, the mighty wall of the Andes is broken through by the sea, and the inundated valley forms the Strait of Magellan; and, after a feeble re-appearance in the Fuegian archipelago, the cordillera is lost in the ocean.

As seen on a school-room map, this Tierra del Fuego is a dim islet, deriving its chief importance from its famous headland, Cape Horn. On a nearer inspection, however, this nebulous patch resolves into a cluster of islands,--one very large, with a crowd of smaller attendants to the west and south; and, far from the mainland, stands the kerbstone of the New World,-Cape Horn with his surf-beaten pyramid.

Though only the fag-end of America-a mere caudal vertebra of the Andes-if we had it in