280 CHILOE. {cHap, x11. 
indented on its margin. I measured one which was nearly eight 
feet in diameter, and therefore no less than twenty-four in cir- 
cumference! The stalk is rather more than a yard high, and 
each plant sends out four or five of these enormous leaves, pre- 
senting 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 Chris- 
tians were very poor, and, under the plea of their situation, begged 
for some tobacco. Asa 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 difficuli it must be to buy the smallest article, 
when such trouble is taken to recover so small a debt ! 
In the evening we reached the island of San Pedro, where we 
found the Beagle at anchor. In doubling the point, two of the 
officers landed to take a round of angles with the theodolite. A 
fox (Canis fulvipes), of a kind said to be peculiar to the island, 
and very rare in it, and which is a new species, was sitting on 
the rocks. He was so intently absorbed in watching the work of 
the officers, that I was able, by quietly walking up behind, to 
knock him on the head with my geological hammer. This fox, 
more curious or more scientific, but less wise, than the generality 
of his brethren, is now mounted in the museum of the Zoological 
Society. 
We stayed three days inthis harbour, on one of which Captain 
Fitz Roy, with a party, attempted to ascend to the summit of 
San Pedro. The woods here had rather a different appearance 
from those on the northern part of the island. The rock, also, 
being micaceous slate, there was no beach, but the steep sides 
dipped directly beneath the water. The general aspect in con- 
sequence was more like that of Tierra del Fuego than of Chiloe. 
In vain we tried to gain the summit: the forest was so impene- 
trable, that no one who has not beheld it, can imagine so en- 
tangled a mass of dying and dead trunks. I am sure that often, 
