280 



CHILOE. [chap. xin. 



indented on its margin. I measured one wliich Mas nearly eight 

 feet in diameter, and therefore no less than twenty-four in cir- 

 cumference ! The stalk is rather more than a yard high, and 

 each plant sends out four or five of these enormous leaves, pre- 

 senting together a very noble appearance. 



December 6th.— We reached Caylen, called " el fin del Cristi- 

 andad." 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 farther south 

 than the Kio Negro on the Atlantic coast. These extreme Chris- 

 tians were very poor, and, under the plea of their situation, begged 

 for 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 San 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 (Canis fulvipes), of a kind said to be peculiar to the island, 

 and very rare in it, and which is a new species, was sitting on 

 the rocks. He was so intently absorbed in watching the work of 

 the officers, that I was able, by quietly walking up beliind, 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 stayed three days in tliis harbour, on one of which Captain 

 Fitz Roy, with a party, attempted to ascend to the summit of 

 San Pedro. The woods here had rather a different appearance 

 from those on the northern part of the island. The rock, also, 

 being micaceous slate, there was no beach, but the steep sides 

 dipped directly beneath the water. The general aspect in con- 

 sequence was more like that of Tierra del Fuego than of Chiloe. 

 In vain we tried to gain the summit : the forest was so impene- 

 trable, that no one who has not beheld it, can imagine so eii- 

 tano-led a mass of dving and dead trunks. I am sure that ofteu. 



