1834] AN INQUISITIVE FOX. 279 



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 scabm)^ 

 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 cir- 

 cumference ! 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 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 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 diflicult 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 {Cants 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 rocUs. 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 



