The single most important first-hand account of life in Tierra del Fuego in the late nineteenth century. Bridges was the son of an Anglican missionary who had settled at Ushuaia in 1871; he grew up among the Yámana and Selk'nam people, spoke their languages fluently, and recorded their customs and disappearance in unsentimental detail.
The book is also a magnificent adventure story — building a sheep estancia in country with no roads, fording rivers, getting lost in winter forest, eventually crossing on foot from the Atlantic to the Pacific side of Tierra del Fuego with a Selk'nam guide. Indispensable for anyone serious about this region.