INTRODUCTION.
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Three hundred and fifty years ago the great navigator Magellan anchored in a port on the eastern coast of an unknown shore, part of the seaboard of the vast continent of South America, to which he gave the name of St. Julian. Starting from this point, the pilot Serrano explored the coast to the southward, and discovered a river, which he named Santa Cruz. His ship was wrecked near the mouth, and left her timbers on the rocks, the first of the long list of vessels lost on that ironbound coast which, from the mouth of the Rio Negro to the Straits, offers but one or two safe harbours, while submerged reefs, fierce gales, strong tides, currents, and overfalls combine to render it nearly the most perilous known to navigators.
Magellan remained at Port St. Julian and Santa Cruz from April till October of 1520, when he sailed southward, and discovered the Straits which bear his name. Two months after his arrival at Port St. Julian a man of gigantic stature appeared on the beach, ‘larger and taller than the stoutest man of Castile.’ Eighteen natives afterwards arrived, dressed in cloaks of skins and shoes of guanaco hide, which made huge footmarks, whence they were called Patagonés, or ‘large feet,’ by the Spaniards; and thus originated in a nickname the name of the country, Patagonia. These men used bows and arrows, and had with them four young guanacos
, with which they decoyed the wild ones within shot. Two young men were treacherously seized and carried off, howling and calling on their god Setebos. The natives naturally resented this return for their ready friendliness, and, attacking a party sent after them, killed one Spaniard with their arrows. Enough, however, was seen of them to furnish Pigafetta with some details. ‘Their tents were light movable frames, covered with skins; their faces were painted; they were very swift of foot, had tools of sharp-edged flints, and ate their meat nearly raw.’
That the first knowledge of Patagonia was diffused in England by Pigafetta’s narrative is suggested by Caliban’s lines in the ‘Tempest:’ ‘he could command my dam’s god Setebos;’ but it was not till 1578 that the newly-discovered country was visited by Englishmen.
Sir Francis Drake in that year anchored in Seal Bay—probably a little to the south of Port Desire—and saw several Indians. His chaplain narrates their method of stalking the ostriches: ‘They have a plume of ostrich feathers on a long staff, large enough to hide a man behind, and with this they stalk the ostriches.’ He further says: ‘They would have none of our company until such time as they were warranted by their God “Settaboth.” They never cut their hair, which they make a store-house for all the things they carry about—a quiver for arrows, a sheath for knives, a case for toothpicks, a box for fire sticks, and what not; they are fond of dancing with rattles round their waists; they have clean, comely, and strong bodies, are swift of foot, very active, a goodly and lively people. Magellan was not altogether wrong in naming them giants, yet they are not taller than some Englishmen.’ Drake next visited Port St. Julian; and, curiously enough, as Magellan had in this place put to death two and marooned a third of his captains who mutinied, so this harbour was the scene of the execution of Mr. Doughty, who chose rather to be beheaded than to be put on shore. The ensuing year Sarmiento was despatched from Callao to examine the Straits in search of the daring Englishman. He saw natives who chased their game on horseback, and brought it down with bolas. But fifty years had elapsed since horses had been imported by the Spaniards of the Rio de la Plata, and already the Indians in the far south had become horsemen, and would seem to have exchanged their bows and arrows for the bolas.
In 1581 Sarmiento was sent from Spain with 2,500 men in twenty-three ships, to found new colonies in the Straits, and established a settlement, leaving 400 men and thirty women, furnished with eight months’ provisions. On his way home his ship was captured by the English, and the unhappy colonists were altogether forgotten and neglected by their Government.
Five years after, Thomas Cavendish anchored in a bay to the south of St. Julian, called by him Port Desire, which perpetuates the name of his little craft of 120 tons. Here the natives attacked his men with bows and arrows. Visiting the Straits, he arrived at the settlement, and found only twelve men and three women surviving, the rest having perished of slow starvation and disease; and the name of the place, Port Famine, conferred by him, still recalls the miserable fate of these ill-fated colonists.