Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.3)

Dec. 1834. SAN PEDRO. 341 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 mise- rable hovel it was. The latitude is 43° 10, which is two degrees further south than the Rio Negro on the Atlantic coast. These extreme Christians were very poor, and, under the plea of their situation, begged 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 In the evening we reached the island of S. Pedro, where we found the Beagle at anchor. In doubling the point, two of the officers landed to take a round of angles with the theodolite. A fox, of a kind said to be peculiar to the island, and very rare in it, and which is an undescribed species, was sitting on the rocks. He was so intently ab- sorbed in watching their manoeuvres, that I was able, by quietly walking up behind, to knock him on the head with my geological hammer. This fox, more curious or more scientific, but less wise, than the generality of his brethren, is now mounted in the museum of the Zoological Society. We staid three days in this harbour ; on one of which Captain FitzRoy, with a party, attempted to ascend to the summit of San Pedro. The woods here had rather a differ- ent aspect from those on the northern parts of the island. The rock also being micaceous slate, there was no beach, but the steep sides dipped directly beneath the water. The gene- ral aspect in consequence was more like that of Tierra del Fuego than of Chiloe. In vain we tried to gain the summit he forest was so impenetrable that no one, who has not be- held it, can imagine so entangled a mass of dying and dead