298 CHILOE CHAP. 



be a fine duck ; and with some cotton handkerchiefs, worth 

 three shillings, three sheep and a large bunch of onions were 

 procured. The yawl at this place was anchored some way 

 from the shore, and we had fears for her safety from robbers 

 during the night. Our pilot, Mr. Douglas, accordingly told 

 the constable of the district that we always placed sentinels 

 with loaded arms, and not understanding Spanish, if we 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 south- 

 ward. 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 clifts, some very fine plants of 

 the panke (Gunnera scabra), 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 

 circumference ! 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 Cristi- 

 andad." 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 difficult it must be to buy 

 the smallest article, when such trouble is taken to recover so 

 small a debt ! 



