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. How very difficult it must be to buy the smallest article,
when such trouble is taken to recover so small a debt.
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