they wintered, there were people like savages, and the men are from nine to ten spans in height, very well made; they have not got houses, they only go about from one place to another with their flocks, and eat meat nearly raw: they are all of them archers and kill many animals with arrows, and with the skins they make clothes, that is to say, they make the skins very supple, and fashion them after the shape of the body, as well as they can, then they cover themselves with them, and fasten them by a belt round the waist. When they do not wish to be clothed from the waist upwards, they let that half fall which is above the waist, and the garment remains hanging down from the belt which they have girt round them.[1] They wear shoes which cover them four inches above the ankle, full of straw inside to keep their feet warm. They do not possess any iron, nor any other ingenuity of weapons, only they make the points of their arrows with flints, and so also the knives with which they cut, and the adze and awls with which they cut and stitch their shoes and clothes. They are very agile people, and do no harm, and thus they follow their flocks: wherever night finds them there they sleep; they carry their wives along with them with all the chattels which they possess. The women are very small and carry heavy burdens on their backs; they wear shoes and clothes just like the men. Of these men they obtained three or four and brought them in the ships, and they all died except one, who went to Castile in a ship which went thither.[2]
They sailed from this river of Santa Cruz on the 18th of October:[3] they continued navigating along the coast until
- ↑ In the Illustrated News of March 27th, 1869, there is a drawing of some Patagonians: these are represented almost exactly as they are described in the text, for some of them have their shoulders bare, and the skins let down below the waist as here described.
- ↑ Probably in the ship which fled away, as will be mentioned later. Lisbon Ac. note.
- ↑ Amoretti, the editor of Pigafetta, observes, that whilst the fleet was in the river of Santa Cruz, between 50 deg. and 40 deg. South latitude
