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 cattle; the order in which they are here
mentioned, expressing 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
southward. 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
Cristiandad." 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 degs. 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.
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