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-oarsman gabbled Indian, and uttered
strange cries, much after the fashion of a pig-driver driving
his pigs. We started with a light breeze against us, but yet
reached the Capella de Cucao before it was late. The country
on each side of the lake was one unbroken 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 difficulty,
but the Indians managed it in a minute. They brought the
cow alongside the boat, which was heeled towards 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 bottom of the boat,
and then lashed her down with ropes. At Cucao we found
an uninhabited hovel (which is the residence of the padre
when he pays this Capella a visit), where, lighting a fire, we
cooked our supper, and were very comfortable.
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
sometimes in a little oil, which they get from seal-blubber.
They are tolerably dressed in clothes of their own manufacture,
and they have plenty to eat.
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