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 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 
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 0 1 o', 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! 
