tout pieces laid crosswise serve as beam timbers. In the bottom,
amidships, is a mud hearth on which burns a fire, with sticks set up
around it to dry. There are three compartments in the craft, separated
from one another by the cross-pieces: in the forward one are various
weapons--spears, clubs, and sling-stones--and fishing implements. The
amidships section holds the fire-hearth, the men having place on the
forward side of it; the women, who do the paddling, are seated farther
aft; while in the stern division are stowed the boys, girls, and dogs.

Such is the picture taken in by the gig's people at a glance, for they
have neither time nor opportunity to examine it minutely, as the
Fuegians keep up a continual shouting and gesticulating, their hoarse
guttural voices mingled with the barking of the dogs making a very
pandemonium of noise.

A sign from Seagriff, however, and a word or two spoken in their own
tongue, brings about a lull and an understanding, and the traffic
commences. Sea-otter and fox-skins are exchanged for such useless
trifles as chance to be in the gig's lockers, the savage hucksters not
proving exorbitant in their demands. Two or three broken bottles, a
couple of empty sardine-boxes, with some buttons and scraps of coloured
cloth, buy up almost all their stock-in-trade, leaving them not only
satisfied, but under the belief that they have outwitted the
_akifka-akinish_ (white men).

Still, they continue to solicit further traffic, offering not only their
implements of the chase and fishing, but their weapons of war! The
spears and slings Seagriff eagerly purchases, giving in exchange several
effects of more value than any yet parted with, somewhat to the surprise
of Captain Gancy. But, confident that the old sealer has a good and
sufficient reason, the Captain says nothing, and lets him have his way.

The Fuegian women are no less solicitous than the men about the barter,
and eagerly take a hand in it. Unlike their sisters of civilisation,
they are willing to part with articles of personal adornment, even that
most prized by them, the shell necklace. [Note 2.] Ay, more, what may
seem incredible, she with the child--her own baby--has taken a fancy to
a red scarf of China crape worn by Leoline, and pointing first to it and
then to the babe on her shoulder, she plucks the little one from its
lashings and holds it up with a coaxing expression on her countenance,
like a cheap-jack tempting a s