OCR Text |
Show 340 CHILO E. Dec. 1834. under water, many .fish which are left on the mud-banks as the tide falls. They occasionally possess fowls, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, and cattle ; the order in which they are here mentioned expressing their respective frequency. I never saw any thing more obliging and humble than the manners of these people. They generally began with stating, that they were poor natives of the place, and not Spaniards, and that they were in sad want of tobacco and other comforts. At Caylen, the most southern island, we bought with a stick of tobacco of the value of three-halfpence, two fowls-one of which, the Indian stated, had skin between its toes, and turned out to be a fine duck; and with some cotton handkerchiefs, worth three shillings, we procured three sheep, and a large bunch of onions. The yawl at this place was anchored some way from the shore, and we had fears for her safety during the night. Our pilot, Mr. Douglas, accordingly told the constable of the district, that we always placed sentinels with loaded arms, and not understanding Spanish, if we saw any person in the dark, we should assuredly shoot him. The constable, with much humility, agreed to the perfect propriety of this arrangement, and promised us that no one should stir out of his house during that night. During the four succeeding days we continued sailing southward. The general features of the country remained the same, but it was much less thickly inhabited. On the large island of Tanqui there was scarcely one cleared spot; the trees on every side extending their branches over the sea-beach. I one day noticed some very fine plants of the panke (Gunnera scabra), which somewhat resembles the rhubarb on a gigantic scale, growing on the sandstone cliffs. The inhabitants eat the stalks, which are subacid, and tan leather with the roots, and prepare a black die from them. The leaf is nearly circular, but deeply indented on its margin : I measured one which had a diameter of nearly eight feet, and therefore a circumference of no less than twenty-four! The stalk is rather more than a yard high, and each plant Dec. 1834. SAN PEDRO. 341 sends out four or five of these enormous leaves-presenting together a very noble appearance. DECEMBER 6'.rn.-We reached Cay len, called "el fin del Cristiandad.'' In the morning we stopped for a few minutes at a house on the northern end of Laylec, which was the extreme point of South American Christendom, and a miserable hovel it was. The latitude is 43° 10', which is two degrees further south than the Rio Negro on the Atlantic coast. '"rhese extreme Christians were very poor, and, under the plea of their situation, begged some tobacco. As a proof of the poverty of these Indians, I may mention that, shortly before this, we had met a man who had travelled three days and a half on foot, and had as many to return, for the sake of recovering the value of a small axe, and a few fish. How very difficult it must be to buy the smallest article, when such trouble is taken to recover so small a debt ! In the evening we reached the island of S. Pedro, where we found the Beagle at anchor. In doubling the point, two of the officers landed to take a round of angles with the · theodolite. A fox, of a kind said to be peculiar to the island, and very rare in it, and which is an undescribed species, was sitting on the rocks. He was so intently absorbed in watching their manreuvres, that I was able, .by quietly walking up behind, to knock him on the head with my geological hammer. This fox, more curious or more scientific, but less wise, than the generality of his brethren, is now mounted in the museum of the Zoological Society. We staid three days in this harbour ; on one of which Captain FitzRoy, with a party, attempted to ascend t? the summit of San Pedro. The woods here had rather a different aspect from those on the northern parts of the island. The rock also being micaceous slate, there was no beach, but the steep sides dipped directly beneath the water. T~e general aspect in consequence was more like th~t of Tierra ~el Fuego than of Chiloe. In vain we tried to gam the summit: he forest was so impenetrable that no one, who has not beheld it, can imagine so entangled a mass of dying and dead |