Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

390 cALBUCANo's MODE OF LIFE. Jan. Feb. round it, I stuck up two more stakes, also in a line towards it and next day followed tlie lines to their crossing, at which spot I dug, and about two feet underground found a decayed tree." (Whence a gaseous exhalation ?) Mr. Douglas's account of the life of an industrious Calbu- cano* is interesting. He says, that those who are called ' hom- bres de bien ' (honest men) are generally the sons of worthy parents, and who marry, wliile young, some hard-working sober woman. Such a pair, as one of these men and his wife, sow some corn and plant potatoes, then leave the land, with their house, in the care of an old relation, and go to the Cordillera to work in an astillero.f If their luck is good, that is, if they find plenty of fine, straight grained trees, not farther than usual from the sea,J this pair will cut and bring down five hundred boards in a month ; then returning home they clean the potato grounds, and attend to domestic affairs, until their feet heal, and a paralytic motion of the legs, acquired in the astiUero, has ceased. When quite refreshed they go for another cargo, and work till their legs and feet can stand it no longer. A third trip is afterwards made by the husband, for about a fortnight, to a nearer astiUero, where he cuts pieces of timber and plank of as large a size as he can carry (tablones y cuartones), then returns to collect his harvest, make chicha, and sow com for next year. The winter months are passed in comparative in- activity, but not without due consumption of cider and pota- toes. Occasionally the Calbucano goes to San Carlos, to sell, or rather barter his boards for indigo, tobacco, red pepper, clothes, axes, spirits, &c. ; and on these occasions, as well as when they go from Calbuco to the continent, several unite together to man a piragua, in the manner described by Cap- tain King, vol. i, p. 285-6. Directly his children are able to walk a few miles, he takes them with him to the astiUero ; begins by giving them two half-boards to carry, and as they grow stronger, increases their • Native of Calbuco. + A timber-yard : or a place where alerse is cut down, on the flanks of the Cordillera of the Andes. J From three to five miles.