Both his words and tone tell of fear,—confessed at last, since he knows it can no longer be concealed. But the others are only surprised, for as yet they are ignorant of any danger which may arise from an interview with the natives, of whom they know nothing.
Meanwhile, the canoe has pulled well out from the shore—the northern one—and is evidently making to meet the gig in mid-water, an encounter which cannot be avoided, the breeze being now light, and the boat having little way, nothing like enough to shun the encounter. Seeing it to be inevitable, the Captain says, “We may as well show a bold front, and speak them, I suppose?”
“Yes,” assents Seagriff, “thet air the best way. ’Sides, thar’s no chance o’ our gettin’ past ’em out o’ reach o’ thar sling-stones. But I guess we hevn’t much to fear from thet lot, ef thar aren’t others to jine ’em; an’ I don’t see any others.”
“Nor do I,” indorses the Captain, sweeping the shore-line with his glass. “It’s the only craft I can see anywhere.”
“Wal, it ain’t on a warlike bender, whether Ailikoleep or no, seein’ as thar’s weemen an’ childer in ’t. So I reck’n thar’s nothin’ to be skeart about jest yet, though you niver kin tell for sartin what the critters air up to till they show it themselves.”
By this, the Fuegians have approached near enough for hailing, which, however, they have been doing all along, shouting in high-pitched voices, and frantically gesticulating.
They cry, “Ho-say! ho-say!” in quick repetition, two of them standing up and waving skins of some sort above their heads.
“Thet means to hold palaver, an’ hev a dicker wi’ ’em,” says Seagriff. “They want to trade off thar pelts an’ sech-like for what we can give them in exchange.”
“All right,” assents the Captain. “Be it so; and we may as well douse the sail and heave to—we’re making no way, any how.” At this the sail is lowered, and the boat lies motionless on the water, awaiting the approach of the canoe.
In a few seconds the native craft comes paddling up, but for a time keeps beyond grappling distance—a superfluous precaution on the part of the Fuegians, but very agreeable to those in the gig. Especially so now that they have a nearer view of the occupants of the native craft. There are, in all, thirteen of them; three men, four women, and the rest girls and boys of different ages, one of the women having an infant tied to her by a scarf fastened over one of her shoulders. Nearly a dozen dogs are in the canoe also—diminutive, fox-like animals with short ears, resembling the Esquimaux breed, but smaller. Of the human element—if human it can be called—all are savages of the lowest type and wildest aspect, their coarse shaggy hair hanging like loose thatch over low foreheads, and partially shading their little, bleary red eyes. Hideous are they to very deformity. Nor is their ugliness diminished, but rather heightened, by a variety of pigments—ochre, charcoal, and chalk—laid thick upon their faces and bodies with an admixture of seal-oil or blubber. The men are scantily clothed, with only one kind of garment, a piece of skin hung over their shoulders and lashed across the chest, and all the women wearing a sort of apron skirt of penguin-skins.