A GEOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE JUAN FERNANDEZ ISLANDS 



79 





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Fig. 93. Carica papaya in the garden of Mr. Charpentier, Valle Anson. 



berg i*/4 1917- 



Photo C. Skotts- 



if the passage could be completed in 2 V2 to 3 days all went well, but in too 

 calm or too bad weather the motor alone did not help very much, the crossing 

 was slow and it happened that very few of the lobsters arrived alive. Two minor 

 companies were also in operation. The closed season was strictly observed. On 

 the 2d of January at 6 a.m. a rifle shot signalled the open season, and the 

 launches towed a string of boats, each party rushing to gain the best grounds 

 which it monopolized during the season. Recart y Doniez also held the licence 

 to fish at Masafuera and sent a schooner thither several times. I don't remember 

 having heard that any kind of fish was exported at that time, but fish was the 

 staple food on the island. About 200 people lived there, most of the men being 

 employed by the companies. The village in Cumberland Bay (fig. 92) looked 

 quite inviting with its neat, if not always too well kept houses, vegetable gardens, 

 fruit trees and flower-beds, set among exotic trees like araucarias, eucalypts, 

 poplars, pines, Albizzia, Eriobotrya and so forth. Johow has published a paper 

 on the plants cultivated in the islands, and also a list in his book pp. 263 — 266. 

 With the exception of the fig and the quince most of the fruit trees yielded in- 

 different fruits. The cliinate is of the Mediterranean type, but at the same time 

 pronouncedly oceanic, and the lack of a period of real warm weather seemed to 

 be responsible for the failure of Citrus fruits. The more surprising was it to find 

 the papaya in cultivation in a garden belonging to a colonist of French descent. 



