[84] Ultimo Viage, p. 21.
[85] Falkner, according to Dean Funes, was originally engaged in the slave trade at Buenos Ayres; but afterwards became a Jesuit, and studied in the college at Cordova, where, to an eminent knowledge of medicine, he added that of theology. He is the author of a description of Patagonia, published in London after the expulsion of the Jesuits.—(Ensayo de la Historia Civil del Paraguay, Buenos Ayres, y Tucuman, por el Doctor Don Gregorio Funes, iii. p. 23, note. Published at Buenos Ayres. 8vo. 1817.)
[86] See Dean Funes's account of Buenos Ayres, and of the Indian tribes, vol. ii. 394.
[87] We left Gregory Bay in the morning, and passed Cape Virgins in the evening of the same day.
[88] On our passage from Santos to St. Catherine's, in latitude 28° south, we caught a 'dolphin' (Coryphena), the maw of which I found filled with shells, of Argonauta tuberculosa, and all containing the 'Octopus Ocythöe' that has been always found as its inhabitant. Most of the specimens were crushed by the narrow passage into the stomach, but the smaller ones were quite perfect, and had been so recently swallowed that I was enabled to preserve several of various sizes containing the animal. To some of them was attached a nidus of eggs, which was deposited between the animal and the spire. The shells varied in size from two-thirds of an inch to two and a half inches in length; each contained an octopus, the bulk and shape of which was so completely adapted to that of the shell, that it seemed as if the shell increased with the animal's growth. When so many learned naturalists have differed so materially as to the character of the inhabitants of the argonauta, it would be presumption in me to express even an opinion; I therefore merely mention the fact, and state that in no one specimen did there appear to be any connexion between the animal and the shell.
[89] Nodales, p. 48.
[90] Falkner says, in his account of the burial ceremonies of the southern Patagonians—that, after a certain interval, the bodies are taken out of the tomb, and skeletons are made of them by the women—the flesh and entrails having been burnt. It is possible that in this case the body had been so treated, and that the fire near it was for the purpose of burning the flesh, and perhaps with it all the flags and ornaments of the tomb.
[91] He was a great favourite with them.
[92] The medicinal property of this intestinal concretion is well known wherever the animal is found. Marcgrave, in his "Tractatus topographicus et meteorologicus Brasiliæ," folio, p. 36, says:—"Hæc animalia (guanacoes) generant lapides Bezoares in sinu quodam ventriculi, qui maximi æstimantur contra venena et febres malignos ad roborandum et refocillandum cor, aliosque affectus. Materia è qua generantur sunt herbæ insignis virtutis, quibus vescuntur naturæ instinctu ad sanitatem tuendum, aut morbos et venena superandum. Hi lapides inveniuntur in adultioribus hisce animalibus atque interdum tam grandes, ut unum in Italiam attulerim qui pendet uncias duas supra triginta."—Mr. Thompson, on Intestinal Concretions. See his Syn. of Chemistry, iv. 576.
[93] Anser nigrocollis. Encyc. Méthod., art. Ornithol. 108.