36 CUILOK. 



periagua is a strange, rough boat, but the crew 

 were still stranger : I doubt if six uglier little men 

 ever got into a boat together. They pulled, how- 

 ever, very well and cheerfully. The stroke-oars- 

 man gabbled Indian, and uttered strange cries, 

 much after the fashion of a pig-driver driving his 

 pigs. We started with a light breeze against us, 

 but yet reached the Capella de Cucao before it 

 was late. The country on each side of the lake 

 was one unbi'oken forest. In the same periagua 

 with us a cow was embarked. To get so large an 

 animal into a small boat appears at fij-st a difficulty, 

 but the Indians managed it in a minute. They 

 bi-ought the cow alongside the boat, which was 

 heeled towards her; then placing two oars under 

 her belly, with their ends resting on the gunwale, 

 by the aid of these levers they fairly tumbled the 

 poor beast, heels over head, into the bottom of the 

 boat, and then lashed her down with ropes. At 

 Cucao we found an uninhabited hovel (which is 

 the residence of the padre when he pays this Ca- 

 pella a visit), where, lighting a fire, we cooked 

 our supper, and were very comfortable. 



The district of Cucao is the only inhabited part 

 on the whole west coast of Chiloe. It contains 

 about thirty or forty Indian families, who are scat- 

 tered along four or five miles of the shore. They 

 are very much secluded from the rest of Chiloe, 

 and have scarcely any sort of commerce, except 

 sometimes in a little oil, which they get from seal- 

 blubber. They are tolerably dressed in clothes of 

 their own manufacture, and they have plenty to 

 eat. They seemed, however, discontented, yet 

 humble to a degree which it was quite painful to 

 witness. These feelirigs are, I think, chiefly to be 

 atti-ibuted to the harsh and authoritative manner in 

 which they are tr-eated by their inilers. Our com- 



