1834.] SAN PEDRO. 203 



worth three shillings, three sheep and a large bunch of onions were 

 procured. The yawl at this place was anchored some way from the 

 shore, and we had fears for her safety from robbers during the night. 

 Our pilot, Mr. Douglas, accordingly told the constable of the district 

 that we always placed sentinels with loaded arms, and not under- 

 standing 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, growing on the 

 sandstone cliffs, some very fine plants of the panke (Gunnera scabra), 

 which somewhat resembles the rhubarb on a gigantic scale. The 

 inhabitants eat the stalks, which are subacid, and tan leather with the 

 roots, and prepare a black dye from them. The leaf is nearly circular, 

 but deeply indented on its margin. I measured one which was nearly 

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

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

 plant sends out four or five of these enormous leaves, presenting 

 together a very noble appearance. 



December 6th. We reached Caylen, called " el fin del Cristiandad." 

 In the morning we stopped for a lew 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 Rio Negro on the Atlantic 

 coast. These extreme Christians 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 i 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 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 stayed three days in this 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, 



