Byron's Narrative of the Loss of the Wager: With an account of the great distresses suffered by himself and his companions on the coast of Patagonia from the year 1740 till their arrival in England 1746Byron, John
History
Byron's Narrative of the Loss of the Wager: With an account of the great distresses suffered by himself and his companions on the coast of Patagonia from the year 1740 till their arrival in England 1746
Byron, John
Chiloé (Chile); Patagonia (Argentina and Chile); Wager (Ship)
The first thing we did upon our arrival, was to secure the barge, as
this was our sole dependence for any relief that might offer by sea;
which done, we repaired to our huts, which formed a kind of village
or street, consisting of several irregular habitations; some of which
being covered by a kind of brush-wood thatch, afforded tolerable
shelter against the inclemency of the weather. Among these, there was
one which we observed with some surprise to be nailed up. We broke
it open, and found some iron work, picked out with much pains from
those pieces of the wreck which were driven ashore. We concluded from
hence, that the Indians who had been here in our absence, were not of
that tribe with which we had some commerce before, who seemed to set
no value upon iron, but from some other quarter; and must have had
communication with the Spaniards, from whom they had learned the value
and use of that commodity. Thieving from strangers is a commendable
talent among savages in general, and bespeaks an address which they
much admire; though the strictest honesty, with regard to the property
of each other, is observed among them. There is no doubt but they
ransacked all our houses; but the men had taken care, before they went
off in the long-boat, to strip them of their most valuable furniture;
that is, the bales of cloth used for lining, and converted them into
trowsers and watch-coats. Upon farther search, we found, thrown aside
in the bushes, at the back of one of the huts, some pieces of seal, in
a very putrid condition; which, however, our stomachs were far from
loathing. The next business, which the people set about very seriously,
was to proceed to Mount Misery, and bury the corpse of the murdered
person, mentioned to have been discovered there some little time after
our being cast away; for to the neglect of this necessary tribute to
that unfortunate person, the men assigned all their ill-success upon
the late expedition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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