The Indianapolis journal., 1898-11-06

five hundred and more, get them away into
the forest and have a big feast. They then
break the legs of the sheep remaining and
drown them in some deep stream. leaving
them there until the chase of the farmers
is over, when they go back for another fat
but now well-rotted feed. They eat the
decayed flesh of stranded whales and fish
which they find upon the shore, but, as a
rule. do not go out i'm canoes to fish, as do
the Yaghans and the AIacalures. They also
make traps to catch game. They use only
bows and arrows in war and for hunting.
The arrows were originally tipped with flint.
but now they are pointed with pieces of
glass made out OF the broken whisky and
wine bottles thrown out by the steamers
passing through the Strait of Magellan.
The Ona women weave very pretty rush
baskets Of bowl shape. They cure the
skins which their husbands bring in from
the hunt and sew them together with sinews
into robes or rugs. These Onas, / am told,
have no Great Spirit or God like our In
dians. Just what their religion is I am un-
able to learn. They believe in polygamy,
one man having several wives, which he
buys Of their fathers at as low price as
he can.
ABOUT THE YAGHANS.
Before the whites came here there were
something like three thousand of the Yag-
Ian Indians. They were described by sea
captains as 9. healthy, hearty, naked, saw
age race. The English established mis-
sion in south TERRA del Fuego and persuad-
ed them to put on clothes. 1t is claimed
that with the wearing of clothes came con-
sumption and pneumonia, and that this has
reduced their number to less than 500. The
head of the mission among these Indians
hoe
big sheep farm In the south. He has an
Indian settlement where the people live in
houses and where they farm on small
Ecale The Information l have about these
Yaghans comes almost entirely from Mr..
Bridges. He says they live in groups of
about thirty families. They are not can
nibals as has been charged, and they do
not eat raw meat. Their principal food
consists of molusks, fish, sea calves, birds,
strawberries and fungi. Their women cook
these things in different ways. They cook
birds by placing them on the Goals and
putting red-hot stones inside of them. They
bake eggs by breaking a small hole in one
end and then standing them upright in the
embers before the fire, turning them round
and round to make them cook evenly. They
cook and eat the blood Of animals, but, as a
rule, eat their vegetables raw. The women
are the fishers and the men do the hunting.
The men make canoes, but the women pad
die them. They are good boatmen and are
better and more fearless swimmers than
the men.
One of the wonderful things about the
Yaghans is their language. With no means
of writing, they have vocabulary of about
10000 words. Mr.. Bridges, who has made a
Yaghan-E English dictionary. gives this as
the number. The Eskimo use, it is said, less
than 10000 words, and Shakspeare's vocab-
ulary contained only "a 900 words. There are
only 1900 different words in the Bible, and
in all of Millions poems you will find less
than 1900 words. take these figures from
John f. Spearss book, recently published,
on ''Gold Diggings of Cape Horn.
TERRA DEL FUEGO IN 1893.
The TERRA del Fuego of the biographies
and encyclopedias is dreary land of snow
and ice. of glaciers and rocky wastes Let
me tell you what the real TERRA del Fuego
is. My information comes from what
have seen and from what have learned
from the men who lived upon it and who
have visited nearly every part of it, 1t is
s important to know, for it is one of the
bones of contention between Chile and the
Argentine republic, and in the war which
AS it is, Chile owns the lions share of it,
having quietly surveyed the coast and COB
bled up the Strait of Magellan before the
Argentine knew what she was about. The
Argentines to-day think that the islands
should belong to them. but rather than have
a war they have conceded all to Chile west
of line running south of Cape Virgins, at
the eastern entrance to the Strait of Ma
gelan. The result is they own only foot
ing on the archipelago and only small
slice of TERRA del Fuego proper.
The archipelago of TERRA del Fuego con-
fains as much land as Kansas. 1t is wider
from east to west than from Cleveland to
Chicago, and from north to south it is
longer than from New York to Boston. The
archipelago is made up OF hundreds of
wooded islands, mostly mountainous, but a
few of which have valleys and plains COW
cred with rich grass, on which sheep and
cattle quickly grow fat. The largest islands
of the archipelago are Onisin, or King
Charles Southland, or TERRA del Fuego
proper; Desolation island, which lies near
the western entrance to the straits, and
along which / eoasted for miles on my way
here; the Isle of st. Ives. Clarence island
and Dawson island. a little farther to the
eastward, and the large islands of Hoste
1-AlA ~NofdAAHOs Ou tuC SOulfl OdDc
itself is on one of the little islands at the
bottom of the archipelago The chief island
IS TERRA del Fuego proper. 1t is half as
big as Ohio. and it now supports hundreds
SOf thousands of sheep. The best lands of
aAe Chilean part of it have been taken up
within the past few years under lease from
the, Chilean government. The Argentine
portion is not well settled, owing to the
difficulty of access and the uncertainty as
80 boundary
THE PLAINS AND PAMPAS.
Still from what / can learn the Argen-
tines have some of the best lands. Nearly
all of the southern and eastern portions of
the island are plains, wide stretches of
moorland much like Scotland, covered with
grass, which in summer is green, but now
in winter is turned to a reddish-brown The
ether parts are made up of mountains, val
leys and plains. Around the west and south
coasts there is a rim of mountains many
OF which rise almost precipitously from the
water. and which probably gave Darwin the
ground for his statement that there was
not level acre of ground upon the whole
island. The plains are generally in the in
terror. Running midway between the north
and south across the country there is an
elevated tableland and beyond this to the
north a second plain. The grasses of the
plains are rich. but they are so largely
eaten up by ground rats that it takes from
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