16 CHILOE. 



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 sand- 

 stone 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 Q)th. — We reached Caylen, 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 de- 

 grees farther south than the Rio Negro on the At- 

 lantic 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 



