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)
When the Indians of this part of the world have occasion to stop any
where in their rambles, if it be only for a night or two, the men, who
take this business upon them, while the women are employed in much
more laborious offices, such as diving in the sea for sea-eggs, and
searching the rocks for shell-fish, getting fuel, &c., repair to the
woods, and cutting a sufficient number of tall, strait branches, fix
them in an irregular kind of circle, of uncertain dimensions; which
having done, they bend the extremities of these branches so as to meet
in a centre at top, where they bind them by a kind of woodbine, called
supple-jack, which they split by holding it in their teeth. This frame,
or skeleton of a hut, is made tight against the weather with a covering
of boughs and bark; but as the bark is not got without some trouble,
they generally take it with them when they remove, putting it at the
bottom of their canoes: the rest of the wigwam they leave standing.
The fire is made in the middle of the wigwam, round which they sit upon
boughs; and as there is no vent for the smoke, besides the door-way,
which is very low, except through some crevices, which cannot easily be
stopped, they are not a little incommoded on that account; and the eyes
of some of them are much affected by it.
But to return: in this wigwam, into which I took the liberty to
introduce myself, I found only two women, who, upon first seeing a
figure they were not accustomed to, and such a figure too as I then
made, were struck with astonishment. They were sitting by a fire, to
which I approached without any apology. However inclined I might have
been to make one, my ignorance of their language made it impossible to
attempt it. One of these women appeared to be young, and very handsome
for an Indian; the other old, and as frightful as it is possible to
conceive any thing in human shape to be. Having stared at me some
little time, they both went out; and I, without any farther ceremony,
sat me down by the fire to warm myself, and dry the rags I wore. Yet I
cannot say my situation was very easy, as I expected every instant to
see two or three men come in and thrust me out, if they did not deal
with me in a rougher manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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