Savage (14 page)

Two days later the ship came to a halt in the sanctuary of Goree Roads. They were now near to the eastern entrance of what was soon to become known as the Beagle Channel, significantly closer to Jemmy's land than that of York and Fuegia. As the ship lay in calm waters, York announced that he would rather stay in Jemmy's country than go home. The captain was delighted and mightily relieved. ‘This was a complete change in his ideas, and I was very glad of it; because it might be far better that the three, York, Jemmy and Fuegia, should settle together. I little thought how deep a scheme Master York had in contemplation.'

At the time FitzRoy attributed York's change of heart to his realisation that the missionary Matthews, with his collection of gifts, was going with Jemmy Button. He wanted to make sure that he, too, had a share of the booty.

The next day a party put ashore at Goree Roads to scout out a possible site for a settlement. This was a strange action: to have left the Fuegians here would surely have been the worst of all worlds, for it would have meant that none had been returned to their own people. It is indicative that FitzRoy was making plans on the hoof. As it happened the area was singularly unsuitable. It was the only flat land that FitzRoy had seen in Tierra del Fuego, and he had hoped that it would make good farmland. A long walk soon put paid to that idea. It was a morass of boggy moss and peat that sank up to six feet deep. There was little sign of life, just a gaggle of wild geese, a few guanaco, and the remains of a still warm fire near which a man had recently slept and eaten limpets. York Minster said that such isolation indicated he was ‘a very bad man', somebody who had been caught stealing. They determined to push on into Jemmy's country. The idea was to inch around the north-eastern coast of Navarin Island, into the Beagle Channel and on towards the Murray Narrows. Here they would deposit the Fuegians and Matthews at Wulaia Cove.

The next couple of days were spent putting together a small flotilla of whale-boats, yawl and gig. A temporary deck was built onto the yawl to carry the ‘outfit' of equipment Matthews had brought from Walthamstow. In his diary Darwin vented his spleen: ‘The choice of articles showed the most culpable folly and negligence … [and] shows how little was thought about the country where they were going to. The means absolutely wasted on such things would have purchased an immense stock of really useful articles.'

Among the gifts were five rabbits with which to populate the area, given to FitzRoy by a Tom Wood in England, and which, he told his sister, he ‘had cherished religiously in spite of their knawing through every machine which could be contrived for their safety and further protection from numerous salt sea waves'.

At just before nine o'clock on the morning of 19 January, the four boats departed from the
Beagle.
With FitzRoy went the three Fuegians, Matthews, Darwin, Bynoe, Hamond, the mate Stewart, midshipman Johnson and twenty-four seamen. It was a party of formidable size, capable of towing the heavily laden yawl against contrary winds and tides.

For once the weather was glorious, and by early afternoon they had entered the channel, putting thirty miles between themselves and the
Beagle.
Not a native person had been seen, the sun shone, the water was smooth, the boughs of large trees hung across the passage and spectacular serrated mountains, iced in snow and cloaked with thick forests, decorated their route. It had been an ideal start. As darkness fell they pulled into a pleasant cove formed by a cluster of small islands. Darwin was evidently content: ‘Nothing could look more comfortable than this scene. The glassy water of the little harbour, with the trees sending their branches over the rocky beach, the boats at anchor, the tents supported by the crossed oars, and the smoke curling up the wooded valley, formed a picture of quiet retirement.'

The fires they built that night were, FitzRoy said, big enough to roast elephants whole. Only one mishap shook their optimism: while hacking through a log, seaman Robinson's axe slipped and he all but severed two fingers. It was considered a bad omen. Hamond wrote in his diary: ‘I turned into my tarpaulin bag but slept very little that night.' The idyllic enclave was named Cutfinger Cove.

At four the next morning they struck camp and, as the sun rose over the mountains, they paddled along the shore past several Indian canoes. They glided on over smooth water, past cliffs that narrowed the channel to just a mile. The new territory was more thickly populated: everywhere fires were lit to mark their passage – the Fuegian warning to others that strangers were on the way. A group of men on the shore ran for miles in pursuit of the boats. As they rounded one set of cliffs, three or four Fuegians leaped up yelling, flailing their arms, shaking sticks, their naked bodies and straggling windswept hair startling those below.

Still they continued, into a strong breeze, striving to maintain their momentum. In the shadow of the hills the temperature was bitterly cold. Jemmy told FitzRoy that these people were enemies and often warred with his people. York laughed at them, mocked them, and screamed, ‘Monkeys – dirty – fools – not men,' from the safety of his boat. Fuegia buried her face from them, unable to bring herself to look at these people. FitzRoy noted in himself a mixture of surprise and pleasure: ‘It was interesting to observe the change which three years only had made in their ideas, and to notice how completely they had forgotten the appearance and habits of their former associates; for it turned out that Jemmy's own tribe was as inferior in every way…'

At noon they came to rest near a native camp. The Fuegians stood and shouted, beckoning the sailors in, but though the gig and second whale-boat went closer, they did not land. FitzRoy bartered for fish from a little distance out. Meanwhile, the men rested on their oars and, after a short breathing space, moved off into a stiff, tiresome breeze. In two hours they made little progress, and took dinner near a group of Indians who kept their slings in their hands and who, for a while, looked decidedly threatening.

FitzRoy defused the situation by tying red tape around their heads and giving them gimlets, which they liked but not as much as if they had been given knives. These Indians, according to Hamond, were ‘miserably thin in the arms and legs with large bodies', yet they were fussy over the food that was offered them, enjoying biscuit, but expressing outright disgust when handed a tin of preserved meat.

The afternoon dragged on. The wind slowed progress to a sluggish mile an hour, and as nightfall loomed, they found themselves being pursued by three canoes. FitzRoy dropped back to encourage them to leave them in peace, but without success. He fired a musket over the Fuegians' heads and then, when that did not work, he fired another through one of their canoes. They fell behind, but as the boat party began to put up their tents, canoes arrived and their occupants joined them on the beach.

Early next morning, the sailors awoke to find that the Fuegian numbers had swelled, and they now appeared to be looking for trouble. All of them carried slingshots, and had crossed a boundary line marked on the ground to keep them out. As they raised a terrible din, FitzRoy flourished a cutlass in warning, which inflamed them further. The women and children among the group backed off and one man picked up a large rock. FitzRoy stepped up to him with a bravura display of self-confidence, took the rock from his hand and patted him on the back. The Fuegian fell quiet and the sailors breakfasted as if nothing had happened.

As they set out to sea, one of the Indians stepped up to the water front and launched into a loud speech. York Minster warned those around him that this was ‘very bad talk'. The rest of the day, though, was a largely uneventful row along the beautiful thoroughfare of the Beagle Channel. They were three days out from the ship, new explorers to a virgin territory, and were thankful for the quiet.

The following day, 22 January, began with a welcome fresh breeze that soon gave way to a blistering sun that stripped the skin off the sailors' backs and faces. As they pushed off at nine o'clock, Fuegia Basket almost capsized her boat by getting her dress stuck on the sheet hook. Hamond wrote in his diary, ‘We took the precaution to shift her over upon each tack, for she was more like a bundle of dirty clothes, and much more in the way…' Nothing, though, dampened York's ardour, for he remained in love with her and deeply jealous. FitzRoy's entry for this day in his
Narratives
tells of the not always serious problems this was causing him:

The attentions which York paid to his intended wife, Fuegia, afforded much amusement to our party. He had long shewn himself attached to her, and had gradually become excessively jealous of her good-will. If any one spoke to her, he watched every word; if he was not sitting by her side, he grumbled sulkily; but if he was accidentally separated, and obliged to go in a different boat, his behaviour became sullen and morose. This evening he was quizzed so much about her that he became seriously angry, and I was obliged to interpose to prevent a quarrel between him and one of his steadiest friends.

In spite of the heat and long distance covered, the day's row was magnificent in scenery and low in native interference. Jemmy told FitzRoy that nobody lived here because it was dangerous territory, a ‘land between bad people and his [Jemmy's] friends', a sort of buffer zone that was periodically transgressed by the Yamana's deadliest enemies, the Oens-men. He was afraid that they might stop there for the night, but they pulled on as far as Ponsonby Sound, and landed among the wigwams of a group in the same tribe as Jemmy.

There were three men and two women, and they had been so frightened at the sight of the flotilla that they had run away. On landing FitzRoy sent Jemmy and York to reassure them. The Fuegians rejoined the camp, but they brought sad news: Jemmy's father was dead. Jemmy turned to the coxswain James Bennet and reminded him of the dream that he had had out at sea. He was grave, but not distraught, uttered the words, ‘Me no help it!' and left to collect green leaves, which he burned with a gloomy look on his face, ‘after which he talked and laughed as usual,' FitzRoy noted, ‘never once, of his own accord, recurring to the subject of his father's decease'.

That night the seamen made another of their blazing fires and sat around it with the polite, meek Fuegians, their faces like ghastly masks in the flickering wood fire. Jemmy narrated long stories about his life in the area and about the cruel and much feared Oens-men, who crossed the mountains at the time of ‘red leaf' – April or May – to attack the people of the Yahgashaga and steal their women, children, dogs and weapons and to kill their men.

As everyone listened attentively to his tales, Darwin observed the Fuegians who had joined them: ‘We were well clothed and though sitting close to the fire, were far from too warm; yet these naked savages, though further off, were observed to our great surprise, to be streaming with perspiration at undergoing such a roasting.' Yet they appeared content, and when the crew struck up a song they joined in the chorus as best they could, though Darwin added, ‘The manner in which they were invariably a little behindhand was quite ludicrous.'

Late in the evening a couple of the Fuegians left in their canoes to spread the news of the return of the prodigal son, and the strange, singing friends with hairy faces he had brought with him.

Chapter 12

The morning of 23 January 1833 saw an extraordinary start to what became an extraordinary day. Not long after sunrise, as the sailors loaded their cooking utensils into the boats, they heard a distant yelling. Within minutes a large gang of Indians had arrived on the beach, running so quickly that their noses were bleeding, talking and shouting in such rapid-fire chatter that their mouths frothed with saliva. The faces of many were covered in white spots and their hair was smeared with clay; others had black and red stripes painted over their noses and cheeks, and all wore strings around their neck. The startled seamen thought they were facing demons returning from a battle, but there was no aggression and little trouble, other than a feeble attempt at pilfering – one man was caught with Hamond's axe under his arm, but when challenged he gave it up with a lack of shame bordering on nonchalance.

The weather was magnificent, a glorious day in which to begin the final, crucial stage of FitzRoy's long experiment. No sooner had the boats pushed off than Fuegian canoes started to fall in behind them. There were thirteen at first, but as each settlement was passed and each island circumnavigated, more canoes paddled out to greet them. FitzRoy described the scene in a fine passage of a letter to his sister:

The day of our arrival at Wullia was beautiful – the steep-sided snow-capped mountains glittered in the sun on one side while on the other they threw a deep darkness over the icy smooth dark blue water. Thirty or forty canoes followed our boats as we pursued a winding course amongst inlets and around projecting precipices. The deep voices of the natives, shouting with all their might, were echoing from height to height. From the fires in each canoe, small columns of blue smoke ascending added to the novelty and picturesqueness of the scene. It was not what one would expect in Tierra del Fuego, it was (except in the tops of the mountains) a scene of the South Sea Islands.

Over the next few hours the combination of hard rowing and a fortuitous breeze, which billowed their sails, meant that the boats stole a substantial march on their pursuers. They arrived at Wulaia Cove in the early evening with valuable time to evaluate the settlement and get organised. FitzRoy had never been here before – he had kidnapped Jemmy at sea, and had no idea of what to expect. What he found was a delight beyond all his hopes: gently inclined pastureland, with a good deep soil, well watered by a crystal clear stream, that promised fertility and augured well for the agricultural ambitions he had for the returning Fuegians. He was overjoyed at the prospects for a permanent settlement here and complimented the proud Jemmy on the quality of his home turf.