Magellan treated the man with kindness, and soon other natives paid the Spaniards visits. With them they appear to have brought a couple of young guanacos, leashed together and led by a cord. They stated that they kept these animals as decoys for the wild herds, who on approaching the tethered guanacos fell an easy prey to the hunters lying in ambush close at hand.
The Patagonians are said to have eaten rats, caught on the ship, whole, without even removing the skins! However, they seem to have been peaceably disposed towards the Spaniards, until Magellan, being struck with their great height, resolved to take home some specimens of the race as curiosities for the Emperor, and consequently he entrapped two of the young men while on board his vessel. Seeing, however, that one of these Patagonians grieved for his wife, Magellan sent a party ashore with a couple of the natives to fetch the woman: but on the road one of the natives was wounded, the result being that the whole tribe took to flight after a slight skirmish with the Spaniards, one of whom died almost instantly after being struck by an arrow. From this event it would seem that the Patagonians of that period used poisoned arrows, as do the Onas of Tierra del Fuego to-day. These people do not employ vegetable poison, but leave their arrows in a putrid carcase until they become infected.
The next navigator to visit the shores of Patagonia was Sir Francis Drake in 1578. He also commanded a small squadron of five vessels, and, curiously enough, had to cope with a plot against his life when in the same harbour of Port San Julian. The story is well known. Mr. Thomas Doughty, the chief mutineer, was given his choice of death, or of marooning, or to be taken home for trial. He chose death, and was accordingly executed. Drake speaks of the natives as being no taller than some Englishmen.
LAKES AND THE DISTANT CORDILLERA (SHOWING SECOND DIVISION)
During the next hundred years various expeditions touched upon the coasts, some captained by Englishmen, such as Narborough, Byron, and Wallis. The two latter differ a good deal from each other with regard to the stature of the Patagonians. Byron mentions a chief 7 ft. high, and adds that few of the others were shorter. Wallis, on the other hand, gives an average of from 5 ft. 10 in. to 6 ft., the tallest man measured by him being 6 ft. 7 in. At an earlier date than either of these a Jesuit named Falkner, being in Patagonia, mentions a cacique some inches over 7 ft.
In 1783 the traveller Viedma penetrated into the interior and discovered one link of the long chain of lakes lying under the Andes, which still bears his name. He gave the people an average of 6 ft. of stature. Some fifty years after this, H.M.S. Beagle, with Darwin on board, touched at many points of the coast, and short trips inland were undertaken. Darwin's journals give the first detailed account of the country. He agrees with Captain Fitzroy in describing the Patagonians as the tallest of all peoples.
During the years 1869-70, Captain George Chaworth Musters, of the Royal Navy, spent several months with the nomad Indians, traversing a great distance in their company, and becoming acquainted with many interesting facts concerning their habits and customs. Since the publication of his book in 1871 practically nothing exhaustive has been written about Southern Patagonia. One or two travellers have given short accounts of visits there, but the serious opening up of the country is due to the initiative and energy of Dr. Francisco P. Moreno, whose first excursion to Patagonia was made in 1873. In the following year he carried his investigations as far south as the River Santa Cruz. In 1875 he crossed from Buenos Aires to Lake Nahuel-Huapi and the Andean Cordillera, between parallels 39° 30´ and 42°. In 1876 he visited Chubut, and ascended the river Santa Cruz to its parent lake, which he proved was not that discovered by Viedma in 1782, but another lying farther south. To him is due the earliest suggestion of the great system of lakes which are situated in the longitudinal depression that runs parallel with the Cordillera.
Again, in 1879, Dr. Moreno crossed the country to the Cordillera on parallel 44°. Up to that time surveying in those regions was by no means exempt from danger, on account of the hostile attitude of the tribes. The amount of valuable work done by Dr. Moreno did not end with his personal expeditions. Each summer of late years the Argentine and Chilian Boundary Commissions have been surveying and opening up the country. First and last Dr. Moreno must always be regarded as the great geographer of Patagonia.