Note 2. A kind of telegraph or apparatus for conveying information by means of signals visible at a distance, and as oscillating arms or flags by daylight and lanterns at night. A simple form is still employed.
Note 3. The “williwaw,” sometimes called the “wooley,” is one of the great terrors of Fuegian inland waters. It is a sort of squall with a downward direction, probably caused by the warmer air of the outside ocean, as it passes over the snowy mountains, becoming suddenly cooled, and so dropping with a violent rush upon the surface of the water, which surges under it as if struck by cannon shot.
Chapter Eleven.
Why “Land of Fire.”
The night is down; but, although it is very dark, the boat-voyagers do not bring in to land. They are still far from confident that the pursuit has been relinquished; and, until it is abandoned, they are still in danger.
Ere long, they have sure evidence that it is not. Along the shores of the sound flash up fires, which, like the smoke seen in the daylight, are surely signals. Some are down upon the beaches, others high up against the hill-sides—just such lights as Magalhaens beheld three and a half centuries before, while passing through the strait which now bears his name. (Note 1.) Hence, too, the name he bestowed on the unknown country lying south of them, “Tierra del Fuego”—“Land of Fire.”
The fugitives in the gig see fires on both shores—fifty or more—the lurid flames symbolising the fierce implacable hostility of the savages who have set them alight.
“We’re boun’ to keep on till we’ve got ’em all astarn,” says Seagriff. “So long’s thar’s a spark ahead, it’ll be dangersome to put in. They’d be for headin’ us off jest the same to-morrer, ez thar’s another long narrer to pass atween this an’ Darwin Soun’. ’Tair a bit lucky the night bein’ so dark that they can’t sight us from the shore. If they could, we’d ’a’ had ’em out arter us now.”