A DAY AT ANCUD. v 749 



with its outlying farms on the green and 

 fertile hills around, seemed like the very cen- 

 tre of civilization to people who had been so 

 long out of the world. It is said to rain in 

 Ancud three hundred and sixty-five days in 

 the year. But on this particular afternoon it 

 was a very sunny place, and the inhabitants 

 seemed to avail themselves of their rare priv- 

 ilege. Groups of Indians, who had come 

 across the river in the morning to sell their 

 milk in the town, were resting in picturesque 

 groups around their empty milk -cans, the 

 women wrapped in their long shawls, the men 

 in their ponchos and slouched hats ; the coun- 

 try people were driving out their double teams 

 of strong, powerful oxen harnessed to wooden 

 troughs filled with manure for the fields ; the 

 washerwomen were scrubbing and beating 

 their linen along the roadside ; the gardens 

 of the poorest houses were bright with large 

 shrubs of wild fuchsia, and, altogether, the 

 aspect of the little place was cheerful and 

 pretty. Agassiz had but two or three hours 

 for a look at the geology. Even this cursory 

 glance sufficed to show him that the drift 

 materials, even to their special mineralogical 

 elements, were the same as in the Magellan 

 Strait. Here they rested, however, on vol- 

 canic soil. 



