Читать книгу The Voyages of Captain Cook Around the World (All 7 Volumes) - Georg Forster - Страница 12

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THE PASSAGE THROUGH THE STREIGHT OF LE MAIRE, AND A FURTHER DESCRIPTION OF THE INHABITANTS OF TERRA DEL FUEGO, AND ITS PRODUCTIONS.

On the 18th and 19th, we were delayed in getting on board our wood and water by a swell: but on the 20th, the weather being more moderate, we again sent the boat on shore, and Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander went in it. They landed in the bottom of the bay; and while my people were employed in cutting brooms, they pursued their great object, the improvement of natural knowledge, with success, collecting many shells and plants which hitherto have been altogether unknown: they came on board to dinner, and afterwards went again on shore to visit an Indian town, which some of the people had reported to lie about two miles up the country. They found the distance not more than by the account, and they approached it by what appeared to be the common road, yet they were above an hour in getting thither, for they were frequently up to their knees in mud. When they got within a small distance, two of the people came out to meet them, with such state as they could assume: when they joined them, they began to hollow as they had done on board the ship, without addressing themselves either to the strangers or their companions; and having continued this strange vociferation some time, they conducted them to the town. It was situated on a dry knoll, or small hill, covered with wood, none of which seemed to have been cleared away, and consisted of about twelve or fourteen hovels, of the most rude and inartificial structure that can be imagined. They were nothing more than a few poles set up so as to incline towards each other, and meet at the top, forming a kind of a cone, like some of our bee-hives: on the weather-side they were covered with a few boughs, and a little grass; and on the lee-side about one-eighth of the circle was left open, both for a door and a fire-place; and of this kind were the huts that had been seen in St. Vincent’s bay, in one of which the embers of a fire were still remaining. Furniture they had none: a little grass, which lay round the inside of the hovel, served both for chairs and beds; and of all the utensils which necessity and ingenuity have concurred to produce among other savage nations, they saw only a basket to carry in the hand, a satchel to hang at the back, and the bladder of some beast to hold water, which the natives drink through a hole that is made near the top for that purpose.

The inhabitants of this town were a small tribe, not more than fifty in number, of both sexes and of every age. Their colour resembles that of the rust of iron mixed with oil, and they have long black hair: the men are large, but clumsily built: their stature is from five feet eight to five feet ten: the women are much less, few of them being more than five feet high. Their whole apparel consists of the skin of a guanicoe, or seal, which is thrown over their shoulders, exactly in the state in which it came from the animal’s back; a piece of the same skin, which is drawn over their feet, and gathered about the ancles like a purse, and a small flap, which is worn by the women as a succedaneum for a fig-leaf. The men wear their cloak open, the women tie it about their waist with a thong. But although they are content to be naked, they are very ambitious to be fine. Their faces were painted in various forms: the region of the eye was in general white, and the rest of the face adorned with horizontal streaks of red and black; yet scarcely any two were exactly alike. This decoration seems to be more profuse and elaborate upon particular occasions; for the two gentlemen who introduced Mr. Banks and the Doctor into the town were almost covered with streaks of black in all directions, so as to make a very striking appearance. Both men and women wore bracelets of such beads as they could make themselves of small shells or bones; the women both upon their wrists and ancles, the men upon their wrists only: but to compensate for the want of bracelets on their legs, they wore a kind of fillet of brown worsted round their heads. They seemed to set a particular value upon any thing that was red, and preferred beads even to a knife or a hatchet.

Their language in general is guttural, and they express some of their words by a sound exactly like that which we make to clear the throat when any thing happens to obstruct it; yet they have words that would be deemed soft in the better languages of Europe. Mr. Banks learnt what he supposes to be their name for beads and water. When they wanted beads, instead of ribbons or other trifles, they said hallĕcă; and when they were taken on shore from the ship, and by signs asked where water might be found, they made the sign of drinking, and pointing as well to the casks as the watering-place, cried Oodâ.

We saw no appearance of their having any food but shell-fish; for though seals were frequently seen near the shore, they seemed to have no implements for taking them. The shell-fish is collected by the women, whose business it seems to be to attend at low water, with a basket in one hand, and a stick, pointed and barbed, in the other, and a satchel at their backs: they loosen the limpets, and other fish that adhere to the rocks with the stick, and put them into the basket, which, when full, they empty into the satchel.

The only things that we found among them in which there was the least appearance of neatness or ingenuity were their weapons, which consisted of a bow and arrows. The bow was not inelegantly made, and the arrows were the neatest that we had ever seen: they were of wood, polished to the highest degree; and the point, which was of glass or flint, and barbed, was formed and fitted with wonderful dexterity. We saw also some pieces of glass and flint among them unwrought, besides rings, buttons, cloth, and canvass, with other European commodities; they must, therefore, sometimes travel to the northward, for it is many years since any ship has been so far south as this part of Terra del Fuego. We observed, also, that they showed no surprise at our fire-arms, with the use of which they appeared to be well acquainted; for they made signs to Mr. Banks to shoot a seal which followed the boat, as they were going on shore from the ship.

M. de Bougainville, who, in January, 1768, just one year before us, had been on shore upon this coast in latitude 53° 40ʹ 41ʺ, had, among other things, given glass to the people whom he found here; for he says, that a boy about twelve years old took it into his head to eat some of it: by this unhappy accident he died in great misery; but the endeavours of the good father, the French aumonier, were more successful than those of the surgeon; for though the surgeon could not save his life, the charitable priest found means to steal a Christian baptism upon him so secretly, that none of his Pagan relations knew any thing of the matter. These people might probably have some of the very glass which Bougainville left behind him, either from other natives, or perhaps from himself; for they appeared rather to be a travelling horde than to have any fixed habitation. Their houses are built to stand but for a short time. They have no utensil or furniture but the basket and satchel, which have been mentioned before, and which have handles adapted to the carrying them about, in the hand and upon the back. The only clothing they had here was scarcely sufficient to prevent their perishing with cold in the summer of this country, much less in the extreme severity of winter. The shell-fish, which seems to be their only food, must soon be exhausted at any one place; and we had seen houses upon what appeared to be a deserted station in St. Vincent’s Bay.

It is also probable that the place where we found them was only a temporary residence, from their having here nothing like a boat or canoe, of which it can scarcely be supposed that they were wholly destitute, especially as they were not sea-sick, or particularly affected, either in our boat or on board the ship. We conjectured that there might be a streight or inlet, running from the sea through great part of this island, from the Streight of Magellan, whence these people might come, leaving their canoes where such inlet terminated.

They did not appear to have among them any government or subordination: none was more respected than another; yet they seemed to live together in the utmost harmony and good fellowship. Neither did we discover any appearance of religion among them, except the noises which have been mentioned, and which we supposed to be a superstitious ceremony, merely because we could refer them to nothing else: they were used only by one of those who came on board the ship, and the two who conducted Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander to the town, whom we therefore conjectured to be priests. Upon the whole, these people appeared to be the most destitute and forlorn, as well as the most stupid, of all human beings; the outcasts of nature, who spent their lives in wandering about the dreary wastes, where two of our people perished with cold in the midst of summer; with no dwelling but a wretched hovel of sticks and grass, which would not only admit the wind, but the snow and the rain; almost naked; and destitute of every convenience that is furnished by the rudest art, having no implement even to dress their food: yet they were content. They seemed to have no wish for any thing more than they possessed, nor did any thing that we offered them appear acceptable but beads, as an ornamental superfluity of life. What bodily pain they might suffer from the severities of their winter we could not know; but it is certain that they suffered nothing from the want of the innumerable articles which we consider not as the luxuries and conveniencies only but the necessaries of life: as their desires are few, they probably enjoy them all; and how much they may be gainers by an exemption from the care, labour, and solicitude, which arise from a perpetual and unsuccessful effort to gratify that infinite variety of desires which the refinements of artificial life have produced among us, is not very easy to determine: possibly this may counterbalance all the real disadvantages of their situation in comparison with ours, and make the scales by which good and evil are distributed to man hang even between us.

In this place we saw no quadruped except seals, sea-lions, and dogs: of the dogs it is remarkable that they bark, which those that are originally bred in America do not. And this is a further proof, that the people we saw here had, either immediately or remotely, communicated with the inhabitants of Europe. There are, however, other quadrupeds in this part of the country; for when Mr. Banks was at the top of the highest hill that he ascended in his expedition through the woods, he saw the footsteps of a large beast imprinted upon the surface of a bog, though he could not with any probability guess of what kind it might be.

Of land-birds there are but few: Mr. Banks saw none larger than an English blackbird, except some hawks and a vulture; but of water-fowl there is great plenty, particularly ducks. Of fish we saw scarce any, and with our hooks could catch none that was fit to eat; but shell-fish, limpets, clams, and mussels, were to be found in abundance.

Among the insects, which were not numerous, there was neither gnat nor musquito, nor any other species that was either hurtful or troublesome, which perhaps is more than can be said of any other uncleared country. During the snow-blasts, which happened every day while we were here, they hide themselves; and the moment it is fair they appear again, as nimble and vigorous as the warmest weather could make them.

Of plants, Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander found a vast variety; the far greater part wholly different from any that have been hitherto described. Besides the birch and winter’s bark, which have been mentioned already; there is the beach, Fagus antarcticus, which, as well as the birch, may be used for timber. The plants cannot be enumerated here; but as the scurvy-grass, Cardamine antiscorbutica, and the wild celery, Apium antarcticum, probably contain antiscorbutic qualities, which may be of great benefit to the crews of such ships as shall hereafter touch at this place, the following short description is inserted:

The scurvy-grass will be found in plenty in damp places, near springs of water, and, in general, in all places that lie near the beach, especially at the watering-place in the Bay of Good Success: when it is young, the state of its greatest perfection, it lies flat upon the ground, having many leaves of a bright green, standing in pairs opposite to each other, with a single one at the end, which generally makes the fifth upon a foot-stalk. The plant, passing from this state, shoots up in stalks that are sometimes two feet high, at the top of which are small white blossoms, and these are succeeded by long pods: the whole plant greatly resembles that which in England is called Lady’s smock, or Cuckow-flower. The wild celery is very like the celery in our gardens, the flowers are white, and stand in the same manner, in small tufts at the top of the branches, but the leaves are of a deeper green. It grows in great abundance near the beach, and generally upon the soil that lies next above the spring tides. It may, indeed, easily be known by the taste, which is between that of celery and parsley. We used the celery in large quantities, particularly in our soup, which, thus medicated, produced the same good effects which seamen generally derive from a vegetable diet, after having been long confined to salt provisions.

On Sunday the 22d of January, about two o’clock in the morning, having got our wood and water on board, we sailed out of the bay, and continued our course through the Streight.