rejoice in the vital powerof Aztec paintings of th eir much-revered jaguar, depi cted as contain ed expressions of pure potency. And, as narrated earlier in rhis ya rn , footsore tourists stop to smile spontaneously and laugh aloud ar rhe sportive dolphins and giddy octopuses in Minoan wall arr from Akroriki images from a culture of three and a half millennia ago. T he voyagers, the best of them anyway, saw beauty, value and integri ty in primitive Steel and Fire. The medium changes, the message is the same. With a roar ofher huge 15cultures . Think of Columbus hono rin g an inch guns, HMSWarspire, veteran ofjut!and in World War I and other battles from Norway Arawak chieftain in H aiti, eve n as he to Italy in World War JI, supports British, American and Canadian troops storming ashore plann ed to enslave the chieftain's people. on the beaches ofNormandy to liberate France on 6 June 1944. Two ofher big guns are out But this was no skin-deep bit of sentiment, ofaction from German bombs that hit the old warrior the year before offSalerno. And she now it went to the bone. For when Columbus limps into battle with halfher engine power knocked out. But-stay out ofher waf-she will went that way two years later, to find all rhe go on to help win the crucial battle of Walcheren Island as the year ends, wading in to knock Span ish people h e'd left behind slaugh- out German forces blocking the road to victory over Nazi Germany. tered, including hi s close fri end, hi s mistress's brother, Columbus accepted the cacique's wo rd on the we rarely hear of the fate of the surviving three Fuegians, who were brural Spanish ab uses of rhe natives thar led to rhe m assacre. embarked on this voyage after a year's entertainment and educaPeaceful relations were resum ed without reprisals. We know thi s, tion in England. FirzRoy's idea was to rake them back to Tierra de! incidentally, from several sources, including a Spanish priest who Fuego to help their countrymen learn the blessings of C hristianity and civilization . co ndemned Columbus fo r this leniency! What is aston ishing abo ut this is, first, the ability of one of the Most telling of all, I find , is the case of the London studi o set wandering aro und the world with the sole purpose of gathering Fuegians, yo ung Jemm y Bur ton, to acquire competency in rhe knowledge of its places and peo ples, in the voyages of Cap tain co mplicated English language and to absorb quite a few of the Coo k. Every one of these mettleso me gentlemen, carry ing their set co ncepts inherent in the language-concepts like the sanctity of opinions and normal prejudi ces with them-but debating things human life and basic hum an rights. And he evidently learned physical and metaphysical as th e room where they met ro ll ed and remorse for deeds rhat crossed those lines. T hese are concepts jumped in foul weather, or gleam ed in quiet dignity when the sun which it takes any civilization thousands of yea rs to evolve on its shon e on the waters and stream ed in through the stern cabin own. It is moving to see Jemm y so swiftly laying hold of these n9w windows, or crackled with excitem ent as they gathered after shore ideas unknown in th e society he left. We get a touching picture of expeditions where they studi ed native languages and folkways, the him polishing his shoes in preparation for the voyage. The secon d asto nishment has got to be that anyo ne, even rh'e o ne thing all agreed on was the sanctity of perso n of th e native islanders. There was outrage when a sergeant seeking to recover somewhat demented FitzRoy (who com mitted suicide so me yea rs stolen pro perry shot and killed a native South Sea islander who was late r), would think it just or wise to cast th is bright yo ung man seeking to escape w ith his loot. And so it was with every other back into the savage society from which he had emerged-a society where rhe language had no wo rds for the concepts by which example of hurt o r humiliation inflicted on the native peoples. Toward the end of his earthl y run James Cook, reflecting on Jemmy had learned to live. the long voyages in which native peoples had alm ost uni versally The Fuegians, who wa tch ed Jem my leave o n the Beagle w ith welcomed him asked himself what good the va unted civiliza tion perfect indifference, greeted his return with the sam e apathy. And carried aboard his ships had done for the native peoples rhey' d left o n his own in this society, Jemmy found it necessary to adapt. Within a short rime he led a raid on a miss ionary ship, killing the enco untered. H e co uld find no happy answer to that question. One of the starkest confrontations of people ar different levels well-meaning missionaries and looting their goods. This, to me, is in some ways the saddest of the stories that have of development came abo ut during Charles D a1w in's famo us voyage of disco very in HMS Beagle under Captain Robert FirzRoy. come out of the encounter between peoples at different levels of FitzRoy, an eccentric ph ilanthropist in naval service, had picked up culmral development. T he blindn ess of the arrogant do-gooder four yo ung Indi ans from Tierra de! Fuego on a previous voyage. FitzRoy, the slaughter of kindly missionaries, and above all the These most undeveloped of people lived in unroofed windbreaks, horrible desuuction of the humane person Jemmy was becoming, wore no clothing, and fought constantly with each other as rhey add up to a ho peless horror. hunkered aro und fires in a wretched, barren climate. They killed A cheerin g no te on another level is that, despite the bad rap easily and are theirvictimswirhour remorse. They spoke a language given rhe Royal Navy by a currenr breed of critics, rhe Navy took of fixed signals and gestures and had no recognizable form of myrh, no vengea nce on the Fuegians who ki lled the miss ionaries, even story- telling, ceremony or so ng or even oral history that any when a barely recognizable Jemmy appeared during a larer missionary visit-a crouched, stunted man who, as Richard Lee Marks scholars before or sin ce have ever been able to discover. Darwin's nearly five-year voyage in HMS Beagle is one we still expresses in his Three Men ofthe Beagle, felt something of remorse. And then there is rhe inspiring examp le of Darwin in advancing learn about in high school because it led to Darwin 's publishing his epochal Origin ofSpecies a quarter century late r, in 1859. Bur mankind's mission to develop knowledge of its wo rld and its own
SEA HISTORY 90, AUTUMN 1999
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