The number of these savages is no doubt very small, as seldom more than thirty or forty individuals are seen together. The interior of the mountainous islands, which is as little known as the interior of Spitzbergen, is no doubt completely uninhabited; as the coasts alone, with the exception of the eastern and more level part of the country, where the guanaco finds pasture, are able to furnish the means of subsistence. The various tribes, separated from each other by a deserted neutral territory, are nevertheless engaged in constant feuds, as quarrels are perpetually arising about the possession of some limpet-bank or fishing-station. When at war they are cannibals; and it is equally certain that when pressed in winter by hunger they kill and devour their old women before they kill their dogs, alleging as an excuse that their dogs catch otters, and old women do not.
It has not been ascertained whether they have any distinct belief in a future life. They sometimes bury their dead in caves, and sometimes in the mountain forests. Each family or tribe has a wizard, or conjuring doctor. Their language, of which there are several distinct dialects, is likewise little known; it is, however, far inferior to the copious and expressive vocabulary of the Esquimaux.
In 1830, while Captain Fitzroy was surveying the coasts of Fuegia, he seized on a party of natives as hostages for the loss of a boat which had been stolen, and some of these natives, as well as a child belonging to another tribe, whom he bought for a pearl button, he took with him to England, determining to educate them at his own expense. One of them afterwards died of the smallpox; but a young girl, Fuegia Basket, and two boys, Jemmy Button (thus named from his purchase-money) and York Minster (so called from the great rugged mountain of York Minster, near Christmas Sound), were placed in a school at Walthamstow, and moreover had the honor of being presented to King William and Queen Adelaide. Three years Jemmy and his companions remained in England, at the end of which time Captain Fitzroy was again sent out to continue the survey, and took with him these three Fuegians, intending to return them to the place whence they had come. In this, however, he was disappointed; but at their own request York and Fuegia were, with Jemmy, deposited at Woollya, a pleasant looking spot in Ponsonby Sound, belonging to Jemmy’s tribe. His family, consisting of his mother and three brothers, was absent at the time, but they arrived the following morning. Jemmy recognized the stentorian voice of one of his brothers at a prodigious distance, but the meeting, as Mr. Darwin, who witnessed the scene, relates, was less interesting than that between a horse turned out into a field and an old companion. There was no demonstration of affection; they simply stared for a short time at each other. Three large wigwams were built for them, gardens planted, and an abundant supply of every thing landed for their use. Jemmy, who had become quite a favorite on board, was short and fat, but vain of his personal appearance; he used always to wear gloves, his hair was neatly cut, and he was distressed if his well-polished shoes were dirtied. York was somewhat coarse and less intelligent, though in some things he could be quick. He became attached to Fuegia, and as both were of the same tribe, they became man and wife after their return to Tierra del Fuego. She was the most intelligent of the three, and quick in learning any thing, especially languages.
Thus these semi-civilized savages were left among their barbarous countrymen, with the hope that they might become the means of improving their whole tribe; but when Captain Fitzroy returned to the spot twelve months after, he found the wigwams deserted and the gardens trampled under foot. Jemmy came paddling up in his canoe, but the dandy who had been left plump, clean, and well-dressed, was now turned into a thin, haggard savage, with long, disordered hair, and naked, except a bit of a blanket round his waist. He could still speak English, and said that he had enough to eat, that he was not cold, and that his relations were very good people. He had a wife besides, who was decidedly the best-looking female in the company. With his usual good feeling, he brought two beautiful otter skins for two of his best friends, and some spearheads and arrows made with his own hands for the captain. He had lost all his property. York Minster had built a large canoe, and with his wife Fuegia had, several months since, gone to his own country, and had taken farewell by an act of consummate villainy. He persuaded Jemmy and his mother to come with him, and then on the way deserted them by night, stealing every article of their property. It was the opinion of all on board that the cunning rogue had planned all this long before, and that with this end in view he had desired so earnestly to remain with Jemmy’s tribe rather than be landed on his own country. Eight years after an English vessel put into a bay in the Magellans for water, and there was found a woman, without doubt Fuegia Basket, who said, “How do? I have been to Plymouth and London.” York Minster was also seen in 1851. From Captain Snow, commander of the mission yacht “Allen Gardiner,” we have the last accounts of Jemmy Button in 1855. Twenty-three years had not obliterated his knowledge of the English language, but he was as wild and shaggy as his untaught countrymen. In spite of his superior knowledge, he was treated as a very inferior personage by the members of his tribe; yet he declared that though he loved England, he loved his country still better; that nothing should induce him to leave it, and that he would never allow any of his children to quit their native soil.
Other efforts have been made to civilize the Fuegians. A Spanish vessel having been shipwrecked on the eastern coast in 1767, its crew was hospitably treated by the natives, who even assisted in saving the cargo. Out of gratitude, the Governor of Buenos Ayres sent out some missionaries, who, however, totally failed to make any impression on the savages.
A no less unsuccessful attempt was made about the year 1835 by English missionaries; and the expedition of Captain Gardiner, who, accompanied by a surgeon, a catechist, and four Cornish fishermen, sailed to Fuegia in 1851, with the intention of converting the natives, proved equally fruitless, and had a far more tragic end. His measures for securing the necessary supplies of food were so ill calculated that the whole party died of hunger in Spaniards’ Harbor, on the southern coast. Captain Morshead, of the “Dido,” had received orders on his way to Valparaiso to visit the scene of the mission, and afford Captain Gardiner any aid he might require, but, on arriving at the cove, he found it deserted. After a few days’ search the bodies were discovered, and fragments of a journal written by Captain Gardiner gave proof of the sufferings which they had endured before death relieved them from their misery. The spot has received the name of Starvation Beach.
129. STARVATION BEACH.
