HEALTH—REMEDIES—CLIMATE. 293 
crowding round the doors, that the Chilotes had any necessity 
for such food. 
If one may judge from the few applications made to our 
medical men for advice, the climate is either very healthy, or 
the natives prefer their own mode of cure. ‘They have very 
few medical advisers, and those few are not held in much 
estimation, being people of little or no education. A prejudice 
against medical men has been, even in late years, extended to 
foreign practitioners, and carried to great lengths. This illiberal 
feeling is, however, fast wearing away ; but, among the lower 
orders, the application of herbs and other simples is yet wholly 
resorted to for the removal of their complaints. One day, when 
I was employed in making some astronomical observations, at 
Sandy Point, a woman passed me, and forcing her way through 
a thicket of thorny plants, began to gather branches of a spe- 
cies of arbutus (A. rigida.), a small shrubby plant, which is 
every where abundant, especially to the south, and in the Strait 
of Magalhaens. My curiosity prompted me to inquire her rea- 
son for collecting it with such apparent anxiety. She replied, 
with a desponding air, “It is chaura* for a poor, sick child. 
These branches,” she said, “‘ are to be put into the fire, and, 
being green, will produce a thick smoke, and yield a very strong 
aromatic smell. The child, who is only five months old, is to 
be held over it, which, as they say, is a good remedy ; but,” 
she added, with an air of doubt, “« I know not (dicen que es 
bueno, pero yo no sé).” “ Who says so?” I asked. “ Los que 
saben (those who know),” replied the half-credulous mother, 
with a deep sigh, partly doubting the efficacy of the remedy, but 
unwilling to lose the advantages of whatever virtue it might 
possess, for the benefit of her sick infant. 
The climate of Childe is considered, by those who live in 
other parts of Chile, to be “ rigorous, cold, and damp.” Cer- 
tainly there is much reason for such an opinion, particularly 
in the winter months, when it almost always rains, and the 
wind, with little cessation, blows hard, from N. to N.W., and, 
* Chaura, Una murta que no se come. Febres, Dict. of the Chileno 
language. It is, however, edible, and has rather a pleasant flavour. 
