390 cALBUCANo's MODE OF LIFE. Jan. Feb. 



round it, I stuck up two more stakes, also in a line towards it ; 

 and next day followed tlie lines to their crossing, at which spot 

 I dug, and about two feet underground found a decayed tree." 

 (Whence a gaseous exhalation ?) 



Mr. Douglas's account of the life of an industrious Calbu- 

 cano* is interesting. He says, that those who are called ' hom- 

 bres de bien ' (honest men) are generally the sons of worthy 

 parents, and who marry, wliile young, some hard-working sober 

 woman. Such a pair, as one of these men and his wife, sow 

 some corn and plant potatoes, then leave the land, with their 

 house, in the care of an old relation, and go to the Cordillera 

 to work in an astillero.f If their luck is good, that is, if they 

 find plenty of fine, straight grained trees, not farther than usual 

 from the sea,J this pair will cut and bring down five hundred 

 boards in a month ; then returning home they clean the potato 

 grounds, and attend to domestic affairs, until their feet heal, 

 and a paralytic motion of the legs, acquired in the astiUero, 

 has ceased. When quite refreshed they go for another cargo, 

 and work till their legs and feet can stand it no longer. A third 

 trip is afterwards made by the husband, for about a fortnight, 

 to a nearer astiUero, where he cuts pieces of timber and plank 

 of as large a size as he can carry (tablones y cuartones), then 

 returns to collect his harvest, make chicha, and sow com for 

 next year. The winter months are passed in comparative in- 

 activity, but not without due consumption of cider and pota- 

 toes. Occasionally the Calbucano goes to San Carlos, to sell, 

 or rather barter his boards for indigo, tobacco, red pepper, 

 clothes, axes, spirits, &c. ; and on these occasions, as well as 

 when they go from Calbuco to the continent, several unite 

 together to man a piragua, in the manner described by Cap- 

 tain King, vol. i, p. 285-6. 



Directly his children are able to walk a few miles, he takes 

 them with him to the astiUero ; begins by giving them two 

 half-boards to carry, and as they grow stronger, increases their 



• Native of Calbuco. 



+ A timber-yard : or a place where alerse is cut down, on the flanks 

 of the Cordillera of the Andes. J From three to five miles. 



