360 



CHILOE. 



Jan. 1835. 



The road to Cucao was so very bad^ that we determined 

 to embark in a periagua. The commandant^ in the most 

 authoritative manner^ ordered six Indians to get ready to 

 pull us over, without deigning to tell them whether they 

 would be paid. The periagua is a strange rough boat, but 

 the crew were still stranger ; I doubt if six uglier little men 

 ever got into a boat together. They pulled, however, very 

 well and cheerfully : the stroke-oar gabbled Indian, and 

 uttered strange cries, much after the fashion of a pig-driver 

 when driving his pigs. We started with a light breeze 

 against us, but yet reached, before late at night, the Capella 

 de Cucao. The country on each side of the lake was one un- 

 broken forest. 



In the same periagua with us, a cow was embarked. To 

 get so large an animal into a small boat appears at first a dif- 

 ficulty ; but the Indians managed it in a minute. They 

 brought the cow alongside the boat, which was heeled to- 

 wards her ; then placing two oars under her belly, with their 

 ends resting on the gunwale, by the aid of these levers they 

 fairly tumbled the poor beast, heels over head, into the bot- 

 tom of the boat, and then lashed her down with ropes. At 

 Cucao, we found an uninhabited hovel (which is the resi- 

 dence of the padre when he pays this Capella a visit), where, 

 lighting a fire, we cooked our supper, and were very comfort- 

 able. 



The district of Cucao is the only inhabited part on the 

 whole west coast of Chiloe. It contains about thirty or 

 forty Indian families, who are scattered along four or five 

 miles of the shore. They are very much secluded from the rest 

 of Chiloe, and have scarcely any sort of commerce, except some- 

 times in a little oil, which they get from seal-blubber. They 

 are pretty well dressed, in clothes of their own manufacture, and 

 they have plenty to eat. They seemed, however, discontented, 

 yet humble to a degree which it was quite painful to witness. 

 The former feeling is, I think, chiefly to be attributed to the 

 harsh and authoritative manner in which they are treated by 

 their rulers. Our companions, although so very civil to us. 



