Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.1): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

HKALTH REMEDIES — CLIMATE. 293 crowding round the doors, that the Chilotes had any necessity for such food. If one may judge from the few applications made to our medical men for advice, the climate is either very healthy, or the natives prefer their own mode of cure. They have very few medical advisers, and those few are not held in much estimation, being people of little or no education. A prejudice against medical men has been, even in late years, extended to foreign practitioners, and carried to great lengths. This illiberal feeling is, however, fast wearing away ; but, among the lower orders, the application of herbs and other simples is yet wholly resorted to for the removal of their complaints. One day, when I was employed in malting some astronomical observations, at Sandy Point, a woman passed me, and forcing her way through a thicket of thorny plants, began to gather branches of a spe- cies of arbutus (A. rigida.), a small shrubby plant, which is every where abundant, especially to the south, and in the Strait of Magalhaens. My curiosity prompted me to inquire her rea- son for collecting it with such apparent anxiety. She replied, with a desponding air, " It is chaura* for a poor, sick child. These branches," she said, " are to be put into the fire, and, being green, will produce a thick smoke, and yield a very strong aromatic smell. The child, who is only five months old, is to be held over it, which, as they say, is a good remedy ; but," she added, with an air of doubt, " I know not (dicen que es bueno, pero yo no se)."" " Who says so?''' I asked. " Los que saben (those who know)," replied the half-credulous mother, with a deep sigh, partly doubting the efficacy of the remedy, but unwilling to lose the advantages of whatever virtue it might possess, for the benefit of her sick infant. The climate of Chiloe is considered, by those who live in other parts of Chile, to be " rigorous, cold, and damp." Cer- tainly there is much reason for such an opinion, particularly in the winter months, when it almost always rains, and the wind, with little cessation, blows hard, from N. to N.W., and, Chaura. Una murta que no so come. Febres, Diet, of the Chileno lang;uage. It is, however, edible, and has rather a pleasant flavour.