Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 - No. 0223
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[Page 223]
Terra del Fuego
Janry 1769
tho well acquainted with our superiority & from the knowledge they had of the use of our guns which they very soon shewd making signs to me to shoot a seal who was following us in the boat which carried them ashore from the ship. They probably travel & stay but a short time at a place so at least it should seem from the badness of their houses which seem intirely built to stand but for a short time from their having no kind of household furniture but what has a handle adapted to it either to be carried in the hand or on the back from the thinness of their Cloathing which seems little calculated even to bear the summers of this countrey much less the winters from their food of shell fish which must soon be exhausted at any one place & from the deserted huts we saw in the first bay we came to where people had plainly been but a short time before probably this spring
Boats they had none with them but as they were not sea sick or particularly affected when they came onboard our ship possibly they might be left at some bay or inlet which