The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1904-04-21
PATAGONIA GIANTS.
the Early Navigators Renamed
y kant them and the Dwarfs of TERRA

ps! Fuego.
..rf correspondence of The Journal
pr>rA ARENAS, PATAGONIA. March
..4 Who has not heard marvellous
..af the giants of Patagonia, and of
warts who live just across the
-.o channel on the islands of TERRA
r..o. So much nonsense has
.ltten and told about these peo-
-,cr since the first white man
.-... rem in the year 1920, that to
..74t the world possesses few actual
concerning them. You remember
t nuu Pigfetta. the champion liar
.3u-t IN S expedition, describes the
..lulans as "Of that biggenesse
.i.4r manHe of meane stature could
D to their waystes;' and all the
Nporers who felt bound to see
.- ribe as amazing things as their
.~,pTs had done, While few of
mt even farther in their laudi-
to keep up European inter
ell. New World.
..tlng the stature of these giants
. lu amusing discrepancy in the
.-..,ls of celebrated travellers, an
44a modern. Sir Francis Drake,
.ue here in 1913, testified that
.a. l10uians were mot taller than
ugIlShmen.' SchOuten, the
r.- explorer, declared them to be
skeletons, ten or eleven feet
u'Orbigny, the French scien-
- a.ute in 1929 that he never found
r edlng five feet, eleven inches"
-, and Darwin computed their
.....- leight to be six feet; and Gun
NIB. who made them careful
. aot many years ago, says he
4e chief who measured six feet
uches, and saw few of less sta
.. an five feet, ten inches. Captain
t5..r Reid, whose delightful book
.r. odd People stands next to
~un Crusoe" in the estimation
/
Hoa the Patagonians: They have
.-t neasured, Twelve-foot giants
go longer be found, They never
.r.ri except in the fertile imag-
-..s of the old navigators,
f-- EMBODIED testimony, neverthe-
--- S difficult to disbelieve. Other
.s re reliable witnesses have done
a... RIth the Titans: but still we are
to reduce the stature of the
..-uIan to that of ordinary men.
actual giants, they are very tall,
- of them standing seven feet in
cots of guanaca leather, few less
* feet, and a like few rising
gent 10 eight. These measurements
Unite and certain; therefore, if
-ltive giants, it is safe to con
he PatagOnlanS as among the
If human beings, perhaps the
rs llpst that exist or ever existed
.. the face of the earth" one of the
- 'Vid scenes i'll memory's picture
..r one that still stands out dis
and clear, amid a multitude Of
FL shapes and half-Obliterated facts
rrtater mportance-is that of a
larry lecture on long ago Sun
trmOOn, when the speaker i'm
ely SAID The poor giants of
-ruia, though nearly twice as tall
.. ody in this church, if not in this
SAY from nine to twelve feet
lave neither minds nor hearts in
ION to their bodies. They are
.-uL the most fierce and degraded
aa- on earth; they are cannibals,
ST.. east on the bodies of their enc
md on shipwrecked sailors and
.oreigners who happen to fall
.elr hands At other times they
on raw fish. But when the
--1ls are frozen, as they are during
matter part of the year. and no fish
he had, they eat all the old
Of the tribe; next they devour
1rses, if need be; and lastly, but
,n save themselves from starva-
-Aeriiice their beloved dogs to the
H- pot. The people of TERRA del
t.-' are even more ugly, being
.t- not more than three or four
- .t.L with enormously swollen bod
rye heads, short and crooked
they file their front teeth sharp
-s nose of a dog, and devour their
| .aW; and though they live in a
,.p so cold that water freezes every
-' in the year, they build no houses,
f wear no clothes whatever" May
tgsu forgive the reverend gentleman
torrance, for don't believe he de-
Hcat,ely slandered the heathens. He
merely gave us the commo My accepted
apulon in Europe and America, CLEANED,
aiouhtedly, from some standard En-
ytopedia of Universal knowledge;
llt at any rate our youthful magma
aous were so excited and generous pity
Nou5ed, that every tin bank belonging
"e'ery child in the Sunday school was
t..essly broken and all our boarded
rMts dispatched to the poor Patago-
Nils through the pockets of the Mis-
Noaaly
ts VAN NAV i,naui,ta that which in