Patagonia Bookshelf

The wind being strong, a boat could not come ashore very early and the Indian and all his family appearing at our door, about 9 o'clock, ready for the journey, Captain Gardiner determined to go with them without waiting for the arrival of the boat; and away they went, big and little Indians and big and little dogs, the man leaving his wives and children to carry everything, and a very good load some of them had.

In anticipation of this journey of Captain Gardiner's, I asked him on Saturday to let me be present when he gave the carpenter instructions concerning the erection of the other two houses, telling him I had not the least wish to interfere in the matter, but wishing to be able to see if they were proceeded with according to his mind. To this he replied "Certainly, and in my absence you must of course overlook everything". As I had heard no more of this up to the time of his setting off on Monday morning, I asked if he had any instructions to leave, to which he replied that the doors of the two houses to be set up were to face the South, and one house was to stand on each side of that already up, at a distance of ten feet.

Upon the crew's arrival I found that Captain Gardiner had requested Captain Boyse to come ashore and overlook the operations. I therefore quietly gave all the assistance in my power without making any remark, till I observed that Captain Boyse was giving orders regarding the distance and aspect of the houses which did not agree with the instructions which Captain Gardiner had left with me. I therefore merely mentioned what these were and left Captain Boyse to act as he thought proper.

I once for all declare that I never gave Captain Gardiner the least cause for jealousy of me, I always paid him the very utmost respect and he never had the least reason to complain of my behaviour in anything. I never gave him the least reason to suppose that I wished to intermeddle with matters concerning which I had no instructions but on the contrary, when he attempted to take a matter out of my hands concerning which I had instructions and he none, so far from showing any jealousy at his interference, I did all I could to meet his views on the matter, which was settling the powers to be given to the vowels in the phonography of the language I had to learn and reduce to writing and grammatical order, previous to my translating the Scriptures into it.

Captain Gardiner showed me a scheme which he designed to settle the manner in which the vowels were to be used, but it was so manifestly crude and incomplete, and this he immediately discovered upon my quietly dropping a remark or two on some of its defects, that he withdrew it. Subsequently he produced two others, the latter of which I took some pains to improve and told him I would adopt it as far as I could. But it is manifestly premature to attempt to settle this matter finally, before anyone knows what is the genius of the language or what are the vowel sounds to be represented; every part of this matter is at present as a terra incognita and Captain Gardiner knows nothing of the subject he would wish to settle; and therefore, I must act according to my own judgement, hoping for the aid of the Allwise. (Captain G. went so far as to say that a single diphthong would not be necessary, and subsequently he affirmed that there was not one in the Spanish language - the fact is there are twenty diphthongs and five triphthongs).