"They were born so," said our first officer. "As you go through life with your face and hands exposed, so they go with their entire bodies. It is a mere matter of habit,—habit from babyhood to maturity."
All of which is perfectly reasonable. It was observed that on the bottom of their boats was a layer of flat stones, and on these, just amidship, was spread a low, smouldering fire of dried vines and small twigs, designed to temper the atmosphere about them. So frail were the boats that one of the occupants was kept constantly baling out water.
It is impossible to form any intelligent estimate as to how many of these aborigines there are in and about the strait. They find food, like the canvas-back ducks, in the wild celery, adding shell-fish and dried berberries, and are a strictly nomadic people. After exhausting the products of one vicinity, for the time being, they move on, but return to the locality at a proper time, when nature has recuperated herself and furnished a fresh supply of vegetable growth and edible shell-fish. A stranded whale is a godsend to these savages, upon the putrid flesh of which they live and fatten until all has disappeared. In their primitive way they hunt this leviathan, but want of proper facilities renders them rarely successful. Occasionally they manage to plant a spear in some vital spot, deep enough to be effectual, so that the whale, after diving to the depths of the sea, finally comes to the surface, near the place where he was wounded, to thrash about and to die. Even then, unless it is at a favorable point, the large body is liable to be swept away by the strong tide setting through the strait, so that the natives seldom secure a carcass by these means.
Not long since one of the European mail steamers, on approaching the Atlantic end of the strait, sighted an object which was at first thought to be a sunken rock. If this was its character, it was all important to obtain the exact location. A boat was lowered and pulled to the object, when it was found to be the carcass of a dead whale, in which was a stout wooden spear which had fatally wounded the creature. Securely attached to the spear, by means of a rope made of animal sinews, there were a couple of inflated bladders. The spear was evidently a Fuegian weapon, and though it had finally cost the whale his life, the dead body had been carried by the current far beyond the reach of those who had caused the fatal wound. The discovery showed the crude manner in which these savages seek to possess themselves of a whale occasionally and thus to appease their barbaric appetites. They could not pursue one in their frail boats, but the creature is sometimes found sleeping on the surface of the sea, which is the Fuegian opportunity for approaching it noiselessly, and for planting a spear in some vital part of the huge body. Whales, when thus attacked, do not show fight, but their instinct leads them to dive at once.
A few whales were observed within the strait during our passage, some so near as to show that they had no fear of the ship. It was curious to watch them. There was a baby whale among the rest, five or six feet in length, which kept very close to its dam; it suddenly disappeared once while we were watching the school, though only to rise again to the surface of the sea and emit a tiny fountain of spray from its diminutive blow-hole. In passing a small inlet which formed a calm, sheltered piece of water, still as an inland lake, there were seen upon its tranquil bosom a few white geese, quietly floating, while close at hand upon some rocks, a half score of awkward penguins were also observed, with their ludicrous dummy wings, and their bodies supported in a half standing, half sitting position.
Ducks seem to be very abundant in the strait, but geese are scarce. An occasional cormorant is caught sight of, with its distended pouch bearing witness to its proverbial voracity. All the birds one sees in these far away regions have each some peculiar adaptability to the climate, the locality, or to both. The penguin never makes the mistake of seeking our northern shores, nor is the albatross often seen north of the fortieth degree of south latitude. True, were the former to emigrate, he would have to swim the whole distance, but the latter is so marvelously strong of wing that it has been said of him, he might breakfast, if he chose, at the Cape of Good Hope, and dine on the coast of Newfoundland.
Terra del Fuego,—"Land of Fire,"—which makes the southern side of the strait, opposite Patagonia, is composed of a very large group of islands washed by the Atlantic on the east side and the Pacific on the west, trending towards the southeast for about two hundred miles from the strait, and terminating at Cape Horn. The largest of these islands is East Terra del Fuego, which measures from east to west between three and four hundred miles. One can only speak vaguely of detail, as this is still a terra incognita. These islands do indeed form "a land of desolation," as Captain Cook appropriately named them, sparsely inhabited to be sure, but hardly fit for human beings. They are deeply indented and cut up by arms of the sea, and composed mostly of sterile mountains, whose tops are covered with perpetual snow. When the mountains are not too much exposed to the ocean storms on the west coast, they are scantily covered with a species of hardy, wind-distorted trees from the water's edge upward to the snow line, which is here about two thousand feet above the sea. In sheltered areas this growth is dense and forest-like, especially nearest to the sea; in others it is interspersed by bald and blanched patches of barren rocks. In some open places, where they have worn themselves a broad path, the glaciers come down to the water, discharging sections of ice constantly into the deep sea, crowded forward and downward by the immense but slow-moving mass behind,—a frozen river,—thus illustrating the habit of the iceberg-producing glaciers of the far north.
One never approaches this subject without recalling the lamented Agassiz and his absorbing theories relating to it.
The author has seen huge glaciers in Scandinavia and in Switzerland, forming natural exhibitions of great interest; each country has peculiarities in this respect. In the last-named country, for instance, there is no example where a glacier descends lower than thirty-five hundred feet above the sea level, while in Norway the only one of which he can speak from personal observation has before it a large terminal moraine, thus losing the capacity for that most striking performance, the discharge of icebergs. The best example of this interesting operation of nature which we have ever witnessed, and probably the most effective in the world, is that of the Muir glacier in Alaska, where an immense frozen river comes boldly down from the Arctic regions to the sea level, with a sheer height at its terminus of over two hundred feet. From this unique façade, nearly two miles in width, the constant tumbling of icebergs into the sea is accompanied by a noise like a salvo of cannon. This glacier, it should be remembered, also extends to the bottom of the bay, where it enters it two hundred feet below the surface of the water, thus giving it a height, or perhaps we should say a depth and height combined, of fully four hundred feet. Icebergs are discharged from the submerged portion continually, and float to the surface, thus repeating the process below the water which is all the while going on above it, and visible upon the perpendicular surface. Nothing which we have seen in the Canadian Selkirks, in Switzerland, Norway, or elsewhere, equals in size, grandeur, or clearly defined glacial action, the famous Muir glacier of Alaska.
The most remarkable peak to be seen in passing through the Strait of Magellan is Mount Sarmiento, which is inexpressibly grand in its proportions, dominating the borders of Cockburn's Channel near the Pacific end of the great water-way. It is about seven thousand feet in height, a spotless cone of snow, being in form extremely abrupt and pointed. This frosty monarch sends down from its upper regions a score or more of narrow, sky-blue glaciers to the sea through openings in the dusky forest. Darwin was especially impressed by the sight of these when he explored this region, and speaks of them as looking like so many Niagaras, but they are only miniature glaciers after all. One sees in the Pyrenees and the St. Gothard Pass similar cascades flowing down from the mountains towards the valleys, except that in the one instance the crystal waters are liquid, in the other they are quite congealed. The group or range of which Sarmiento is the apex is very generally shrouded in mist, and is visited by frequent rain, snow, and hail storms. We were fortunate to see it under a momentary glow of warm sunshine, when the sky was deepest blue, and the ermine cloak of the mountain was spangled with frost gems.