The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn: A Study of Life in Tierra del Fuego and PatagoniaSpears, John Randolph
History
The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn: A Study of Life in Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia
Spears, John Randolph
Patagonia (Argentina and Chile) -- Description and travel
Meantime the boy Tom Bridges had grown to be a man of twenty-five years,
and had prepared himself, with the aid of those who had had charge at
Keppel, to become a missionary himself. With Mr. Stirling's approval he
went to England while Stirling was founding Ushuaia, and before Stirling
reached England Bridges had been ordained a catechist, had married, and
had sailed for Keppel Island. With the departure of the Rev. Mr.
Stirling for ordination as Bishop, Ushuaia was left unoccupied
temporarily, but the vacancy was filled in 1870 by Mr. Bridges and his
wife, who have ever since made their home on the shores of Beagle
Channel, and have until recently taken the lead in the mission work done
there.
Ushuaia Bay is a rounded hollow on the north side of the narrow Beagle
Channel. Lofty, glacier-covered mountains wall off the sun on the north,
and on every other side the ranges are not very far away. To the west,
however, there is an open table land level enough for farm purposes, and
to this came the young missionary and his wife to make a home.
They were apparently displeased with the location afterward, for we read
that "at Ushuaia our position is exposed, and being about ninety feet
above the sea is not favorable for procuring the best results. Many
spots might be chosen where, shelter and greater heat being secured, the
fruits of tillage would be both larger and more certain. But it is vain
for us now to regret our situation."
The log-hut erected by Stirling remained intact, and that was at first
their home; and straightway the work bringing the Yahgan Indians to Mr.
Bridges's standard of civilization and righteousness was begun.
What this standard was has been put in writing, together with a plain
statement of the means employed in raising the standard of
righteousness. He says:
"Our hopes for the material improvement of these natives lie in
their adopting and following farming and agricultural pursuits
together with fishing." And again: "Our daily endeavor is to bind
them with the bonds of Christ's love. To this end we have been of
late showing them the authority of Christ as far greater than that
of Moses."
A tribe of Indians that lived naked in a climate where snow-storms raged
in every month of the year--lived happily and comfortably, too--even in
perfect health on the spontaneous productions of the region, was to be
transformed into a community of farmers there and then. A people who had
in all their wonderful language of 40,000 words no term or idea of
either God or a future existence; who never gave an order, and who had
no such word or idea as to obey, were to be converted to Christianity
by sermons "showing them the authority of Christ as far greater than
that of Moses!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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