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Wesail and his people ate with us this morning as they had done ever since arrival. In the course of the morning his wives and family arrived with his tent; he went to meet them, appearing to pass his wives without any word or sign of recognition but was lavish of caresses with his children, especially Onteachy, a boy about five years old.

The tents etc. were carried by horses, the women having the whole charge of them, not being assisted in any way by the men. Their first care was to select a spot in some degree sheltered from the prevailing winds, but in this, those who owned the best tents were not particular; then the horses were unladed and set at liberty and these never stray far from the encampment; next four or five pointed sticks, about four or five feet long, are forced into the ground, the women throwing their whole weight upon them and swinging their bodies forcibly from side to side. Those who possess few skins, place these sticks in a semi-circular form and content themselves with forming a wall of skins behind them only. Others, more rich in skins, form two parallel straight lines of sticks, those in front being about seven feet high; over all is drawn a cover formed of skins sewn together, which excludes the wind and rain from every part but the front, and even this is sometimes partially closed up in like manner.

The only covering for their bodies in summer and winter is a skin mantle which, except in hot weather, is worn with the hair inwards. At night additional skins are spread upon the ground to sleep upon. Of other conveniences they may be said to have none, except a skin bag or two in which they carry berries and water; he is rich, in this respect, who possesses a knife and a tobacco pipe. Their persons are very dirty and I believe, are never washed and their mantles harbour numberless piojos [lice, Ed.], as does also the hair of their heads, which they do not appear to have any means of combing otherwise than with their hands. Their heads are therefore full of the nits of the before mentioned vermin.

They use little fire and that chiefly for cooking, an operation which is very quickly and partially performed, the meat being suspended upon a stick over the fire, till the meat is burned, which does not always prevent the inside from remaining raw. The shell of a large species of mussel is sometimes used as a cup and spoon, but generally the hand performs the office of a cup, fork and spoon, a corner of the mantle being a substitute for dishes and plates. They are excessively fond of biscuits, tobacco and oatmeal and other porridges and have, within the last few years, contracted a craving for ardent spirits; but for these last we were not much troubled, except once by Wesail himself; for galleta and tobac there is an incessant demand.

The women are very fond of ornaments and very common ones satisfy them if they are coloured or bright. The men are fond of scarlet cloth to wear over their shoulders and bright coloured worsted binding to wear round their heads upon occasions of show; but in general they prefer being disencumbered of everything but their mantles.

They chase the guanacos with their horses and dogs; of the latter they have a great many of various sizes and breeds. The dogs can kill the ostrich themselves. Wesail has a fine black and white hound which might be taken for a cross between the greyhound and staghound. This dog, he says, sometimes kills five ostriches in one sun (day) and "does not seize them by the legs but gets before them and catches them by the head."

In general the dogs require the aid of the men to kill the full grown guanaco. This is accomplished by first throwing them down by means of the bolas which is formed of two balls, about two inches in diameter, made of skin and filled with some heavy substance and attached one to each end of a string composed of the sinews of the legs of an ostrich. One of these balls is held in the hand, while the other is forcibly swung round the head, till it has acquired considerable momentum, when the instrument is allowed to fly from the hand with a rotatory motion; and being hurled with exact aim, some part of the string strikes the animal's legs which causes the balls to revolve round the limbs and bring the animal to the ground, or at least so to impede it, as to admit of its being easily overtaken. Their horses are small and something like a moderate sized two year old English colt. The guanaco is nearly as tall, its legs being longer in proportion, its figure being something between that of a camel and a deer; it has no horns and no hunch upon its back. Their speed at starting is that of a racehorse and their actions while running easy and elegant.

At noon this day none of Wesail's party was expected to dine with us, as his tent and some others had arrived. He had left his dirk in the house and as we were about to sit down to dinner he came about the place; and I thought that as his tent had only come this morning it would be as well to ask him to dinner again, but Captain Gardiner "did not wish to run after him"; to which I only replied that whatever we might think of the man's character, his good opinion and protection were, humanly speaking, everything to the Mission and to us. Captain Gardiner then consented to ask him but it appeared too late, as he had already taken offence and instead of coming to dine he came into the house for his dirk which I gave him. He then said something in Spanish to Captain Gardiner, but what I could not comprehend, till informed that he had shaken the dirk over Captain Gardiner's head and said "You want this don't you?".

Captain Gardiner then followed him to his tent, taking some biscuit for his children; but this, both he and his wives now refused; and Wesail threw down the hat and the cap before Captain Gardiner's face, giving him to understand that their friendship had terminated. He then mounted his horse to go in search of the rest of his people. Captain Gardiner followed him and in the most earnest manner entreated him to alter his mind and accept the biscuits and be friends again. After much ado Wesail shook hands and rode off. Captain Gardiner then came into the house saying he was glad he had induced him to shake hands, as his throwing back the presents was the greatest token of hostility, so that unless he could have been softened and appeased we could not have been sure of our lives.

Captain Gardiner then began to prepare the present he had intended to give him after all his people had arrived, but he now thought good to do it this afternoon, in order to restore the good understanding that had before subsisted. Wesail did not ride far and on his return Captain Gardiner told him he had a present for him and asked him to come and look at it. He did not hesitate long or much but refused everything till he had stated his grievances which, so far as I could understand them were: first, Captain Gardiner's first refusal to send biscuits to the children, mentioned yesterday, and secondly a like refusal this morning; and that he had also come to me and asked me to give him a biscuit for his child, but instead of complying I had taken no notice but had kept on digging at the wall; and all this he had thought very bad.

He is remarkably fond of his children, which is perhaps the best trait in his character, and I give him full credit for sincerity in making these things the ground of offence. Indeed I had quietly and in the mildest terms possible, remonstrated yesterday against the refusal to send more than two biscuits to the two families, and expressed my belief that Wesail had not made himself understood when Captain Gardiner supposed that he only wanted to send some to his own children. I had felt myself very awkwardly situated, for Wesail had made me perfectly understand this morning what he wanted, for his words were "One biscuit for my child"; but I felt myself obliged to take no notice because Captain Gardiner had not only refused, but had told me that he would not give biscuit in this way which, from my understanding that these matters were entirely under his control, I perfectly knew to mean that he did not think it right that Wesail's request should be complied with. I could not tell Wesail this, neither would I if I could, and I was equally unable to give him a polite refusal; at the same time it would have been unwise, if not wrong in me, to have done for him what Captain Gardiner had refused to do. Without time for consideration, I thought at the moment it would be best to appear not to hear or understand and I am now by no means sure, that if I had gone to Captain Gardiner and tried to alter his mind, that I should have succeeded in so doing.

But at any rate these circumstances got me into a difficulty again, for when I perceived that Wesail was telling Captain Gardiner of his having asked me also for a biscuit, I could not of course feel myself at liberty to explain the exact state of the case for two reasons: first, if I had stated the true reason for my non-compliance, it would have been at Captain Gardiner's expense; and secondly, the true reason would have made it appear that if I did not feel at liberty myself to give the Chief a biscuit when he begged only one for his child, I was just nobody and consequently my influence and hopes of usefulness among them would disappear altogether. These considerations drove me to the disingenuous trick of asking Captain Gardiner to tell Wesail that I did not understand Spanish; this satisfied Wesail as far as I was concerned, and he accepted the presents which Captain Gardiner made him for the purpose of securing liberty for us to reside among them as missionaries, and protection for our persons and property. These he promised to afford us and engaged to leave two or three families at the station whenever the rest of the tribe were moving about elsewhere. Upon this act of grace he placed a rider "providing always that the aforesaid Wesail and his son Onteachy should eat at our table whenever we ate".

I also had produced the needlework that my friends had given me for his wives and children; these and the other presents pleased but did not satisfy him as he asked for money, upon which Captain Gardiner gave him some Spanish silver and I gave his a handsome purse to put them into; the result was the agreement mentioned above. After supper he parted from us with the strongest expressions of friendship.

Nevertheless I began to see that we were already in a false position, which would greatly diminish if not destroy our hopes of usefulness among them. It had been intended to present the present publicly as a payment for the ground our houses and garden might occupy: and their acceptance by Wesail upon these terms was to be proclaimed by Wesail to his tribe as a proof that he took us and the Mission property under his protection and intended to exert his influence to forward our missionary views. Other matters of importance were also to be explained and settled, so as to secure for us such respect from the people and influence among them, as would promote our views of usefulness, or at least secure a good understanding upon every important point. But under the above circumstances, so far were these important ends from being gained that Wesail and his people, instead of being impressed with any sense of obligation to us for having left our country and friends to settle among them, with the single view of doing them spiritual good and showing them how to increase their worldly comforts, had seen Captain Gardiner as it were, almost on his knees, begging that we might be reconciled, that Wesail would accept the biscuits for his children and that we might be permitted to remain among then as a favour to ourselves, it would seem, and upon his own terms.

It was not difficult to anticipate that this would encourage both the Chief and his people to make their own demands upon us at their pleasure. The Chilean soldier had told us that Wesail's people were talking of taking our lives at night; we did not regard this much but as Wesail had spoken of using his dirk, while in his passion, we concluded all hope of usefulness was at an end unless he could become reconciled; if this could not be accomplished, we agreed to ask God to send a vessel to take us off, or else graciously direct us to act in any other way according to His Will. It was quite manifest that no dependence could be placed upon Wesail's temper at least, and we began to lose confidence in him in other respects; he also let out the fact that he was not going to stay with us but was going with his tribe to Port Famine, though he added, that he would return when the snow was on the ground.

Many circumstances began to make us doubtful if our present position at Cape Gregory would be tenable for any great length of time, among which were the following - There was no fresh water within four miles that we could confidently depend upon for a constant supply: that which we were near is not a spring and could hardly be called a stream, and the rise of the tide had once already made it salt almost to the very top, and so it remained for several days; there needed therefore only the concurrence of two circumstances viz. a strong east wind and a high tide to cut off this supply entirely. Again, if the Patagonians all left us, we should be exposed to the danger of starving if not of more sudden death at the hands of the notorious Lagoon Indians, against whom the Chilean told us, they were obliged to have a number of soldiers at Port Famine. Of these Lagoon Indians I had heard nothing until I found myself among them. Captain Gardiner first insisted that they were natives of Tierra del Fuego but this turned out to be an error, as they are natives of Patagonia but much inferior in general to the Horse Patagonians. It seems that the best characters among them take their bows and arrows and join the Patagonians, while the bad ones are left to wander by themselves. Another consideration was raised by the apparent great influence that the presents and the priest, Padre Domingo [Fray Domingo Passolini, Ed.], at Port Famine, had gained over the natives, an influence with which we feared ourselves unable to contend. Other minor considerations were the deficiency of firewood, the instability of our houses, etc. Neither as yet had we been able to get any fresh meat, and it began to be doubtful if we could cultivate any vegetables; these latter considerations did not influence us much though, and after prayer at night we felt disposed to think the best of Wesail and his people, and were very thankful that we again appeared to be on good terms with them.