feet, and then scampers off in search of another. This well-trained retriever, though an assiduous barker at home, has the sense to carry on this sport in the deepest silence; and the sleeping spoon-bill is jerked from his perch without ever dreaming of danger. They have also a plan of their own for catching petrels. Having first secured one with a string to his leg, they lower him into any crevice where petrels are known to breed. The old birds are indignant at the stranger's intrusion, and fall on him with such blind fury that they allow themselves to be drawn out of the hole, when they are instantly transferred to the fowler's basket. But birds are not always to be procured, and even sea-eggs are not attainable in stormy weather. For a great period of every year these poor islanders are entirely dependent on mussels, limpets, and similar shell-fish; and, every time that the tide retires, the whole population is spread over the shore, rummaging for this sorry subsistence. Low-water is the meal-time of the dogs, as well as their masters; and it is amusing to notice the adroitness with which these sharp-witted creatures detach the unwary limpet from his moorings. As soon as this pasture is eaten up, these nomads of the beach launch their canoes, and paddle off in quest of new supplies. Sometimes they are so lucky as to discover a stranded whale or a dead sea-lion; and, however "high" such venison may be, it is always welcome, and imparts a sudden

Of course,

plumpness to the fortunate finders. such prizes are rare; and, like most savages, the life of a Fuegian is an alternation of occasional feasts with long intervals of famine. In the desperation of hunger it is fearful to think of the expedients to which he is occasionally driven. There can be no doubt, however, that these Indians are cannibals, and that when other subsistence fails, 'they kill and devour their old women before they kill their dogs." Those who fall in battle are in like manner devoured by the victors.

66

The intellectual capacity of these savages is, probably, small; but their powers of mimicry are amazing. A long English sentence deliberately uttered they will repeat with the utmost precision; and grotesque attitudes or grimaces many of them can reproduce with a comic gravity worthy of Liston or Matthews. Shameless greed and systematic thieving are universal vices. As soon as a canoe comes within hail of a ship, the well-known cry, "Yammer schooner" (Give me), is set up, and at everything given them they clutch and stow it into their basket without one look or utterance of gratitude. Nothing escapes their little glancing predaceous eyes; and, but for the utmost vigilance, nothing would escape their active fingers. Once and again they proved too cunning for the watch of a man-of-war, and succeeded in abstracting valuable boats belonging to the surveying expedition of the British Admiralty; and when a native gentle

man had been paying a visit on board, before he returned to his barge, it was thought no breach of etiquette to examine his cloak for tea-kettles and other trinkets. As Mungo Park experienced in Africa, traces of gentleness and tenderness may be found among the women; but the mercies of the men are cruel. On the slightest provocation, the roguish simper can be exchanged for a scowl of fiendish ferocity; and when exasperated, or brought to bay, they fight with more fury than wild beasts. The men are surly tyrants; the women are laborious slaves. The softening influence of the domestic charities is scarcely known; and an incident related by Commodore Byron shews the fearful moroseness to which depraved humanity sometimes subsides.*

Of the religious belief of these savages little is known. Their divinity appears to be a great black man, who frequents the dim trackless woods

* "Our cacique and his wife had gone off in their canoe, when she dived for sea-eggs; but, not meeting with great success, they returned a good deal out of humour. A little boy of theirs, about three years old, whom they appeared to be doatingly fond of, watching for his father and mother's return, ran into the surf to meet them the father handed a basket of sea-eggs to the child, which being too heavy for him to carry, he let it fall; upon which the father jumped out of the canoe, and catching the boy up in his arms, dashed him with the utmost violence against the stones. The poor little creature lay motionless and bleeding, and in that condition was taken up by the mother; but died soon after. She appeared inconsolable for some time; but the brute, his father, shewed little concern about it."-Narrative of the Hon. John Byron, 1768, page 148.

of the interior; who is very malignant and powerful; and who knows everything that is done or spoken. They are very superstitious. They have great faith in dreams. They will not for any consideration allow a stranger to cut off a lock of their hair; and they think it extremely unlucky to kill the young sea-birds. "Oh, Mr Bynoe, very bad to shoot little duck-come wind-come rain-blow -very much blow," was the solemn remonstrance of one of them to a gentleman who had killed some very young ducklings as zoological specimens. They never speak of the dead. When a boy, hereafter to be mentioned, was questioned about his dead father, he was very unhappy, and refused to answer: 66 No good talk; my country never

Embruted as are these savages, they are not sunk beyond recovery. Through the mercy of our God, there is at this moment on the earth a power well able to cure the worst woes of Fuegia. True, they are not an inviting race; but they are none the less a fac-simile of our British forefathers. Sir James Mackintosh was born in a northern latitude exactly corresponding to Cape Horn in the south, and his ancestors lived in a hut without window or chimney, with a fire in the centre of the floor, with a pile of mussel-shells at the threshold, and with smoked fish and deer's flesh hanging from the rafters; and when they wished to cross an arm of the sea, they waited for a day of calm

weather which would not endanger their wicker coracle. The ancestors of Davy and Newton lived in forests almost as sombre as the beech-woods of Narborough's Land. They wore cloaks of bull or badger's skin, like the otter or guanaco robes of Navarin Island; and they anointed their persons, and pipeclayed their faces, in a truly Fuegian fashion. The ancestors of Wesley and Wilberforce worshipped a devil, and were glad to propitiate his wrath by flinging their infants into the fire. But Christianity has wrought for Britain the best of miracles. If it has not brightened the skies and converted these islands into new Hesperides; it has shed a balm into the moral atmosphere, and it has transformed the population. It has made us, as a people, honest, hard-working, and humane. It has made a future existence a familiar idea, and it has made the Most High a not unfamiliar presence. It has given us tastes, aspirations, and affections, which a nation of atheists or pagans can never know. And whilst all this has been effected with only a small per-centage of practical religionists in our population, and, we may add, with only a small per-centage of Bible Christianity in our practical religion, it has done enough to teach us that the only thing needed to make any land "a delightsome land," is the gospel in ascendancy.

In the year 1831 there were three Fuegians in England. They were brought to this country by Captain FitzRoy, R.N., and the hope was enter