However, Mr. Bridges had told just what he came for—to get land "to create a farm and employ native labor," and so supply a want for agricultural products "which we (the missionaries, of course,) have long felt." Mr. Bridges supplies agricultural products for a price, and he employs some Yahgans, who, as he believes, are better off when sawing logs by hand into fence rails for his ranch than they were in the old days sitting around an open fire eating whale blubber and telling stories. As to the prices he charges, it must be said that he merely shows good business tact. They are always considerably less, even according to those prospectors who do not like him, than charged by Ushuaia merchants, though still from three to five times as much as charged at Punta Arenas (Sandy Point), in the Straits of Magellan.
The prospectors, disposed to criticise Mr. Bridges for making the best business possible of his farm, alleged, without offering any proof of their charge, that Mr. Bridges got his money for stocking the farm by taking clothing which generous people of England sent to the mission for gifts to the naked savages and trading it to the Indians for furs, which he sold for his own private benefit. I do not believe he did that. It appears from the missionary record (see page 56, South American Missionary Magazine of London, March, 1879, and page 39, February, 1881, for instance), that the missionaries did trade with the Indians for furs, and that the clothing which the Indians received was usually, but not always, paid for with either labor or furs. The missionaries did sell clothing sent out to be given to the Indians, but they made no secret of it, and the donors learned the facts in the magazine. The missionaries did not want to pauperize the Indians, they said, by giving gifts. But the profits of these trades went to the society. In 1881 Capt. Willis of the mission schooner in a letter spoke dolefully of the prospect for buying skins on the society's account, "as there are so many sealing vessels out." Capt. Willis spoke also (see page 233 of the magazine) of three canoe loads of Indians who "exchanged otter skins for clothes, and were eager for tobacco."
The missionaries should not be accused of misappropriation of goods simply because the thrifty society wanted to increase its cash income by trading at a tremendous profit with the Indians, for whose eternal welfare it had been created.
Of course Mr. Bridges has been trading with the Indians on his own account, but it was, no doubt, with goods purchased with his own money. One reads so much of the dangers and privations which fall to the lot of missionaries that the fact that they all receive good salaries is always overlooked. The salary of a missionary down there was never less than £120 per year cash, while he received his board and lodging free in addition, of course. Then there was land at Ushuaia where the missionaries could pasture herds bought with money they saved from their incomes. They naturally took advantage of their opportunities. They bought cattle and sheep which were carried there on the society's yacht. The climate and the pasture favored them. The herds and flocks increased. What with his lawful private trade and his lawful stock business while a missionary, Mr. Bridges, no doubt, had ample means for stocking his farm when he left the society's service to turn farmer that he might "insure the well-being of some of the natives." With his twenty-four miles of waterfront, his cheap labor—the cheapest, for the purpose, found anywhere—and his ready access to market, Mr. Bridges will, doubtless, become one of the wealthiest land-holders in the south part of the continent.
There is one other point which a captious critic might bring against Mr. Bridges, but is one the prospectors would not be likely to think of. Some of the land he now holds once belonged to a number of Yahgan families. Their title was not the indefinite one which a tribe might make to the territory it occupied, but a very clear title—a title that any civilized government would acknowledge. It was theirs by right of possession and improvement. The Yahgans had built houses and had fenced and cultivated this land before Mr. Bridges thought of getting it for himself. One would like to know that Mr. Bridges bought the rights of these Yahgans after he acquired title from the Argentine Government, and that he paid for them more liberally than he was accustomed to pay for labor on the mission grounds.
ON THE PRAIRIES OF TIERRA DEL FUEGO.
Mention has been made of the fact that although all the adventurers in the South Sea were ready to enslave and kill fellow-men found under other flags, and endure all sorts of hardships, as well, for the sake of gold, they nevertheless sailed right past Tierra del Fuego without a stop worth mentioning regardless of the sea beach and grass-root placers that were to be found at many points along shore. Almost equally curious is the fact that the Spaniards in the eighteenth century and the Argentines in these last years should have spent much money in planting colonies on the desert coast of Patagonia when north and east Tierra del Fuego, with a better climate and a soil very much better, lay idly awaiting appropriation. The parts of Tierra del Fuego, with the adjoining islands that made the old explorers shiver, were all to the south and west. The "most savage country I have seen" was found by Captain Cook on the weather side of the Andean range, where it rises south of the Strait of Magellan. All Tierra del Fuego, save for that west coast range, is a great alluvial bed, the work of floods operating during untold ages; and Tierra del Fuego is a triangle-shaped island almost as large as the State of New York. In the old-time mud lie the bones of old-time monkeys, kangaroos, and parrots drowned in floods in the days when Tierra del Fuego had a tropical climate. It is apparent that in old days there was a strait across Patagonia where the Gallegos River is now found, and there is a distinct break in the Andes there. So, too, on Tierra del Fuego there was a similar break running across from San Sebastian to Useless Bay. Both regions are rising rapidly from the sea also. But, unlike Patagonia, the low parts of Tierra del Fuego are well-watered prairies, while the foot-hills of the mountain range are covered with forests of saw timber.
In addition to this, the climate is, considering the latitude and the proximity to Cape Horn, marvellously good. The reason for this is, of course, found in the height of the mountain chain, and of the mountainous islands west and south. These fence off the storms that cover the mountains about Ushuaia with ice and snow. A snowfall of six inches is counted deep on the prairies, and if it lies forty-eight hours on the ground the circumstance is remarkable. On the other hand, there are sufficient falls of rain to keep the prairies covered with the most luxuriant grasses. Because frosts come in every month it is not a good farming country; but, on the other hand, it is rarely cold enough to freeze over the fresh-water ponds.
Probably Argentine has the best part of the prairie region of Tierra del Fuego, but the first attempt to take advantage of the rich pastures was made at Gente Grande Bay, opposite Punta Arenas. Mr. Steubenrach, the British Consular agent, seeing that sheep flourished on the more sterile plains of Patagonia, got a concession from Chili on the Tierra del Fuego side, and after erecting fences and buildings, carried sheep there from the Falkland Islands, "placing a missionary in charge of the farm." The hiring of a missionary was a diplomatic stroke. He was expected to civilize the Ona tribe of Indians living on the prairies and make shepherds of them. This work was begun in approved fashion. Pow-wows were held and presents distributed. The Onas in increased numbers came to the ranch, and made many signs of good-will. But they stole sheep by night, nevertheless—rounded up great bunches of them, which they drove away to some convenient spot, and then hobbled them by breaking their hind legs. In this condition the sheep could still feed and the Onas could feed on them at will.
Thereat the missionary held more pow-wows and argued the matter with them. He explained that eternal perdition awaited the souls of Indians who stole sheep. The Indians were not troubled by that prospect. Indeed, it is said, they wanted to know what awaited white men who took land from the Indians without paying for it, and they could not or would not understand the reply the missionary made to them. They seem to have been as obtuse in understanding points of law regarding land titles as North American Indians have always been. So they went on taking sheep in lieu of rentals for the land.