When in the course of time I reached Rio Santa Cruz and went ashore I found a drowsy-looking white man sitting on the beach talking to a native Argentine of mixed blood. The white man, though somewhat sleepy, was indignant, to judge by his expressions and accent. Seeing me he stopped his flow of profanity for a moment, and then said: "Beg pardon, s-s-stranger. Are you English?" "No, I'm a Yankee," said I. "Glad to--hic--hear it. That's whi'-whi' man's country. S-s-see tha' ship?" (Pointing to a brigantine anchored in the stream.) "S-she's English. S-so 'm I. T'--hic--t' 'ell with her. I'm one of her crew. Th' Captain lef' me--hic--here becau' drunk. S-s-said this bes' place for me; going t' leave me here." "Oh, I guess not. He's got to carry you back to London, or wherever the ship cleared from." "Lonnon be damned. I'm from S-s-sandy Point. Wish t'--hic--'ell I was there now. Tha' 's God's country, eh? 'F 'e don' take me 'board to-ni', going walk S-s-sandy Point surer 'n fate." Finding conversation with the sailor growing more difficult with each sentence, I asked the Argentine man about him, and learned that he was originally one of a crew of a ship wrecked on the coast of Tierra del Fuego several years ago. The crew had in some way reached Punta Arenas, or Sandy Point, as the English call it, in the Strait of Magellan, where most of them had found life so pleasant that they could not tear themselves away for any length of time. This man had been sailing in the fleet of little traders that have Punta Arenas for headquarters, but had signed articles on the brigantine, and was in duty bound to return in her to England. She had come into the Rio Santa Cruz for a cargo of wool, and was then well-nigh loaded. The men, of course, had been obliged to come ashore for the wool with small boats, and as a result this man had been able to get drunk. He had been worthless as a foremast hand, and so the skipper had taken advantage of his drunkenness to get rid of him. "Well, will he walk to Punta Arenas?" said I. "Y' are dam' ri' I will," interrupted the sailor. "Who knows?" said the native, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Many of them try it, as he will. Not many arrive there." The last I saw of this fellow was on the evening of my last day in Santa Cruz. He was curling down to sleep on the lee side of a bunch of bushes. He was rather drunker than when I first saw him. He had been drunk every day while I was in port, and this, too, though penniless.