secular authority in a vessel." "I was alone,"
the captain says, "as far as help from home
was concerned; for instead of vigorously
supporting me, I was left by myself to fight
every battle; and that, too, without money,
means, or countenance; and often with
insidious attempts to undermine everything I
did." Ten thousand pounds had been freely
given since the work began, a few years
back; yet "what return was there for any of
it," the captain now asks, "except the ship?"
and she could not be retained unless they
sent out funds to pay men's wages ... "At
the present time, therefore, seeing that no
missionary was coming out, and that large
sums had been subscribed with the hope that
the Fuegians would be visited, I determined
to follow out that clause in my instructions
which told me to try and discover Jemmy
Button...My letters from the secretary
were so contradictory that I was puzzled how
to act. I was cautioned not to go, yet it was
said that 'the society was at so low an ebb,'
that something must be done; and 'one
graphic and well-written account from me of
a visit to the natives would do more to raise
it up than anything else;' and, consequently,
I determined to try and do this."

So, Captain Snow visited in the yacht
Allen Gardiner Spaniard's Harbour, and
explored the scenes of Captain Gardiner's
most miserable death, and he forgathered at
sundry points with natives, whom he found
to have a terrible way of yelling, but to be
quite harmless and friendly. One group of
them, making a ferocious noise, was so
rejoiced at finding itself out-shouted by the
white man who set up a holla-balloo through
a speaking trumpet that the friendliest
relations were established instantly. Instead of
flying from the sight of them, Captain Snow
went boldly and alone among the first group
that he found; when they thumped at his back,
he laughed cheerily, and thumped at their
backs; also, took up and fondled their little
ones, whistled tunes, danced like a wild man,
and let any of them hug him, though they
did all stink, and though they were all
covered with vermin. Moreover, he found
Jemmy Button, who is still alive, who has a
second wife, speaks English still, and is as
dirty as his neighbours. He is not even, by
virtue of his English education, recognised
as a chief among them, but is hustled and
worried by his brethren, as one of the lower
orders of Fuegians. Nevertheless, Jemmy
declared, that if he loved England well, he
loved Fuegia better, pleaded the sea and the
big sick as his reason for declaring that he
would not himself quit again, neither would
he suffer any child of his to quit the native
shore. Wherever he inquired, Captain Snow
found the savages firm in declaration, that
they would not let a child be shipped away
from them. He then finally abandoned in
his own mind the idea cherished by the
Patagonian Missionary Society, that young
native Fuegians and Patagonians shall be
conveyed away to their station in the
Falkland Island, where, as one of the Society's
publications explains, ''in the care of our
cattle, the Patagonians will find congenial
employment; in fishing and sealing, and in
taking sea-birds, we shall find work and food
tasteful to the Fuegian youths... To build
houses, &c. . . The natives can be brought,
but they cannot run away." Practically,
thinks the captain, this is slavery. On such
ground it is vain to delight in the hopes held
out as, he says, "I saw done at a meeting on
behalf of the mission the other day, where
the secretary cleverly turned a picture of
three Fuegians, saying, 'Here you see on one
side the savage in his native state, and here
you see, on the other side, the same savage
in his civilised state,' as he twisted the card
dexterously in his fingers."—"Thus then,"
the captain presently writes, "I infer that it
will be not only a most unchristian, but a
dangerous plan to attempt taking any of the
natives away. If the mission wishes to be
successful, let it go amongst them as I did,
and by gaining their confidence and goodwill
be enabled to sow the seeds of future
civilisation and Christianity, the growth of which
must be a work of time, as well as one of
watchful care and perseverance. These
remarks, or something to the same purport,
were sent home by me when I wrote an
account of this interview with the Fuegians;
but I regret to say, that the committee have
put a quite different construction on my
words, and made me appear to say the
contrary."

On the way home, the captain called at
Monte Video, for the expected missionary,
who had not arrived. His report against the
scheme of the society was not, perhaps,
favourably considered at home. His next
letters said, "the people wonder what the
vessel is doing so much at Monte Video,"
and they were written by the person who
had ordered him to go there. Returned
again to Stanley, the Captain found matter
among his companions, for a chapter of what
he calls "Disorganisation and unpleasantness."
The catechist set himself up as "a
third independent head." The carpenter
and mason, having put up the mission-house,
were, says the captain, in this condition:—
If they remained upon the island, they
would be fed, and have a certain pay; if
they chose to claim their discharge, they
were to be turned off—as was actually the
case with both of them—without being paid
up, and without the smallest aid or means to
get back to their native country." The
captain himself was in a like position, only
the men of the crew were safe, who had
made their agreement with the captain. Of
course we cannot follow all the details of
dissension caused by the resistance of the
land-party to the captain's efforts to establish
them in a way that he considered free from