1834.] POVERTY OF THE INDIANS. 279 
scarcely worth anything, but their eagerness for tobacco was 
something quite extraordinary. After tobacco, indigo came next 
in value; then capsicum, old clothes, and gunpowder. The latter 
article was required for a very innocent purpose: each parish has 
a public musket, and the gunpowder was wanted for making a 
noise on their saint or feast days. 
The people here live chiefly on shell-fish and potatoes. -At 
certain seasons they catch also, in “ corrales,” or hedges under 
water, many fish which are left on the mud-banks as the tide 
falls. They occasionally possess fowls, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, 
and eattle; the order in which they are here mentioned, ex- 
pressing their respective numbers. I never saw anything more 
obliging and humble than the manners of these people. They 
generally began with stating, that they were poor natives of the 
place, and not Spaniards, and that they were in sad want of 
tobacco and other comforts. At Caylen, the most southern 
island, the sailors bought with a stick of tobacco, of the value of 
three-halfpence, two fowls, one of which, the Indian stated, had 
skin between its toes, and turned out to 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 cliffs, 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 
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