Tierra del Fuego

“ All Tierra del Fuego, save for that west coast range, is a great alluvial bed, the work of floods operating during untold ages; and Tierra del Fuego is a triangle-shaped island almost as large as the State of New York. In the old-time mud lie the bones of old-time monkeys, kangaroos, and parrots drowned in floods in the days when Tierra del Fuego had a tropical climate. It is apparent that in old days there was a strait across Patagonia where the Gallegos River is now found, and there is a distinct break in the Andes there. ”

“ Tierra del Fuego, with its innumerable islands and rocky islets, like mountain ranges half sunk in ocean, combines every variety of aspect—storm-beaten rocky summits, several thousand feet above the sea—glaciers so extensive that the eye cannot trace their limits—densely wooded hillsides—grand cascades and sheltered sandy coves,—altogether such a combination of Swiss, Norwegian, and Greenland scenery as can hardly be realized or believed to exist near Cape Horn. Yet, even there—by lake-like waters, though so near the wildest of oceans—thousands of savages exist, and migrate in bark canoes! ”

“ At the opposite extremity of the Continent lies Tierra del Fuego, the natives of which are exposed to still greater privations, and have been pronounced by observant voyagers as among the most degraded of savage races. ”

“ If you are chosen town clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer: but you may go to the land of infernal fire nevertheless. ”

“ And the gales come every day in summer and every week in winter. Expeditions have traversed Tierra del Fuego with horses, but the cheapest and the most comfortable way (in spite of the danger) to prospect the region is from a well-found boat. Moreover, every land expedition must contain enough men to keep up a military guard, because of the hostility of the Indians, while two well-armed, sober men, can defend a well-found boat from the savages, and if skilful and cool can usually escape the danger of storms. ”

“ Every one appeared in high spirits, and the group of nearly naked figures, viewed by the light of the blazing fires, all moving in hideous harmony, formed a perfect display of a festival amongst the lowest barbarians. In Tierra del Fuego, we have beheld many curious scenes in savage life, but never, I think, one where the natives were in such high spirits, and so perfectly at their ease. ”

“ On the north shore we noticed some extraordinary effects of the whirlwinds which so frequently occur in Tierra del Fuego. The crews of sealing vessels call them 'williwaws,' or 'hurricane-squalls,' and they are most violent. The south-west gales, which blow upon the coast with extreme fury, are pent up and impeded in passing over the high lands; when, increasing in power, they rush violently over the edges of precipices, expand, as it were, and descending perpendicularly, destroy every thing moveable. ”

“ He knows that in the weird forests of Tierra del Fuego there is many a tree standing, to all appearance sound in trunk, branches, everything, yet rotten from bark to heartwood, and ready to topple over at the slightest touch, even if but a gun be rested against it. The fall of such trees being a thing of common occurrence, and the natives accustomed to it, they never give it a second thought. ”

“ While trying to find Harbourton, a missionary station on the south-eastern shore of the main island of Tierra del Fuego, she struck a reef.
We were steaming eastward through Beagle Channel. It was late at night, and before us there was the dim outline of a long panorama of islands; behind lay the ice-covered mountains of the tail of the Cordilleras. On each side were the black forest-covered steeps of the wild and melancholy Fuegian Islands. At 11 o’clock the twilight was still pouring over the white glacial sheets of the west; the tops of the islands were aglow with a curious pearly light. ”

“ Tierra del Fuego may be described as a mountainous land, separated from the South American continent by the Strait of Magellan, partly submerged in the sea, so that deep inlets and bays occupy the place where valleys should exist. The mountain-sides, except on the exposed western coasts, are covered from the water's edge upwards to the perpetual snow-line by one great forest, chiefly of beeches. Viewing the stunted natives on the west coast, one can hardly conceive that they are fellow-creatures and inhabitants of the same world ”

“ The forests of Tierra del Fuego are essentially worthless forests; their timber offering but a limited contribution to the necessities of man, and producing scarce any food for his subsistence.
Many of the ravines are so deep as to end, as already stated, in becoming arms or inlets of the sea; while others again are filled up with stupendous glaciers, that appear like cataracts suddenly arrested in their fall, by being frozen into solid ice! Most of these inlets are of great depth,—so deep that the largest ship may plough through them with safety. ”

“ They do not, like the inhabitants of the North Pole, pass the most rigorous period of the winter underground, but pursue their labours in the open air, protecting themselves as best they can against the cold which prevails on these shores, notwithstanding the deceitful name of Tierra del Fuego. ”

“ V. THE FUEGIANS
The Yahgan and Alakaluf tribes of Tierra del Fuego and the adjacent archipelago enjoy the unenviable distinction of being rated as among the lowest of human beings both as to actual culture and possible development. The earlier navigators regarded them as little more than animals—and often, unfortunately, treated them no better. Even Darwin, viewing them with the naturalist's eye, saw little but annoyance in their presence and formed a dismal estimate of their powers. ”

“ There are many more skeletons of dead miners than authentic records of wealth acquired in Tierra del Fuego, while those who have now and again struck it rich and gotten clean off with the dust usually have gone no further with it than Punta Arenas in the Straits of Magellan, for Punta Arenas is to this region what San Francisco was to California and Virginia City to the deserts of Nevada. ”

“ The Captain remembers reading, too, that these colonists had at the start ample store of provisions, with arms and ammunition to defend themselves, and renew their stores. If they could not maintain life in Tierra del Fuego, what chance is there for a party of castaways, without weapons, and otherwise unfitted for prolonged sojourn in a savage land? Even the natives, supplied with perfect implements for fishery and the chase, and skilled in their use, have often a hard, and at times an unsuccessful struggle for existence. ”

“ It must be remembered that the region was supposed to be bleak and desolate, that frightful storms followed each other in swift succession, that the cold was often intense in midsummer, and that in the midst of these terrors of nature lived a tribe of savages so low in the human scale that they did not know enough to build houses to shelter them, or even to sew skins together into a decent blanket for a covering. ”

“ Among all other savages of whom I have read, or among whom I have had any opportunity of judging for myself, except the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, a perpetual and never satisfied curiosity seems to be the leading habit of their minds: here, however, wonder is rarely expressed, curiosity seldom apparent—yet their indifference is not stupidity, or their simplicity cunning. ”

“ But it is a picture often seen in these days in Tierra del Fuego.
The home of the Ona is as bad as any in the world. A saucer-shaped hollow big enough for a bed for all the family is scooped in the ground. In the little ridge about this poles and brush are placed, and over the weather side of the brush is thrown a skin or two. The fire is usually built just without, but near the door of the hut. It is more useful for cooking food than for imparting warmth. The Onas at night allow the fire to go out. To protect themselves from the cold they resort to a novel blanket. ”

“ On the other hand, there are sufficient falls of rain to keep the prairies covered with the most luxuriant grasses. Because frosts come in every month it is [Pg 126] not a good farming country; but, on the other hand, it is rarely cold enough to freeze over the fresh-water ponds.
Probably Argentine has the best part of the prairie region of Tierra del Fuego, but the first attempt to take advantage of the rich pastures was made at Gente Grande Bay, opposite Punta Arenas. ”

“ Tierra del Fuego is indeed a miserable place; the ceaseless fury of the gales is quite tremendous. One evening we saw old Cape Horn, and three weeks afterwards we were only thirty miles to windward of it. It is a grand spectacle to see all nature thus raging; but Heaven knows every one in the "Beagle" has seen enough in this one summer to last them their natural lives. ”

“ Burbury said that region was more dismal than Tierra del Fuego—old deserts, varied by marshes and califate-bush, stone and boulder, thorn and sand. After a rest in the afternoon we rode on, and presently struck a deserted camp of the Argentine Boundary Commission, near which the steam-launch, which had been brought across the pampas for the exploration of Lake Buenos Aires, was secreted.
Nothing in the world looks more forlorn than a deserted camp. ”

“ For making a fire the Onas carry bits of iron ore, which come from an island in the Alaculoof region, west of Tierra del Fuego, and are obtained by barter with that tribe. Flints and agates abound in the Ona country, and these with the ore and a bit of dry fungus, always carried wrapped in a bit of hide or a bladder, enable the Ona to light a fire even in a rain-storm. ”

“ The whole chain of the Andes—that stupendous ridge of mountains which stretches along the western coast of South America, from Tierra del Fuego on the south to the isthmus of Panama on the north—is studded over with Volcanos, most of which have been seen in active eruption within the last 300 years. ”

“ One sight of such a coast is enough to make a landsman dream for a week about shipwrecks, peril, and death; and with this sight we bade farewell for ever to Tierra del Fuego.
The following discussion on the climate of the southern parts of the continent with relation to its productions, on the snow-line, on the extraordinarily low descent of the glaciers, and on the zone of perpetual congelation in the antarctic islands, may be passed over by any one not interested in these curious subjects, or the final recapitulation alone may be read. ”

“ The inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego are of the same race as the Patagonians, but smaller; they live near the sea-coast, as the most of their food is obtained from the water in the shape of shell or other fish, seals, aquatic birds, and a certain edible weed that is thrown up by the waves. ”

“ Such diversity of names for the common acquisition proves that fire is no recent novelty derived from a single source by the savage tribes of that strange southern continent.
Amid all the remarkable evidence recently disclosed relative to the antiquity and the rude arts of primitive man, nothing has yet appeared suggestive of a condition inferior to the savages of Tierra del Fuego or Australia; while much tends to an opposite conclusion. Alike in physical development and in arts, the Troglodytes of the Dordogne caves were undoubtedly far in advance of either ”

“ On the southern or Fuegian side of the Straits the land was low for some distance from the coast, and resembled the northern shore, but high mountains were visible in the background. After passing the second narrows, an hour or two’s run with the flood-tide and a good head of steam brought us opposite to the ‘Island of San Isabel,’ or Elizabeth Island; after passing which the snow-clad peaks of Mount Sarmiento, in the southern part of Tierra del Fuego, came into sight, appearing to rise out of the water, ninety miles distant, if not more. ”

“ Like the sting on the scorpion's poison gland, Tierra del Fuego, the most southern land of America, juts out into the southern sea. It is separated from the mainland by the sound which bears the name of the intrepid Magellan. In the primeval forests of the interior grow evergreen beeches, and there copper-brown Indians of the Ona tribe formerly held unlimited sway. Like their brethren all over the New World, they have been thrust out by white men and are doomed to extinction. ”

“ The inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, the Cape of Good Hope, and Tasmania in the one hemisphere, and of the arctic regions in the other, must have passed through many climates, and changed their habits many times, before they reached their present homes. ”

“ Fred inquired, as he watched the coast of that forbidding region while the ship was steaming away from Sandy Point.
"It was so named by Magellan," replied the Doctor, "in consequence of the numerous fires he saw along the coast."
"But we have seen no fires there," said the youth; "and I wonder if there were more inhabitants then than now."
"I cannot say as to that," Dr. Bronson answered. "No census has ever [Pg 505] been taken in Tierra del Fuego, and from present appearances none is likely to be. Nobody wants the country, as it is absolutely worthless for all practical purposes. ”

“ Cape Negro, a little within the second Narrows, may be considered as the point where the land begins to assume the marked features of Tierra del Fuego. On the east coast, south of the Strait, broken park-like scenery in a like manner connects these two countries, which are opposed to each other in almost every feature. It is truly surprising to find in a space of twenty miles such a change in the landscape. If we take a rather greater distance, as between Port Famine and Gregory Bay, that is about sixty miles, the difference is still more wonderful. ”