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

360 CHiLOE. Jan. 1835. The road to Cucao was so very bad, that we determined to embark in a periagua. The commandant, in the most authoritative manner, ordered six Indians to get ready to pull us over, without deigning to tell them whether they would be paid. 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-oar gabbled Indian, and uttered strange cries, much after the fashion of a pig-driver when driving his pigs. We started with a light breeze against us, but yet reached, before late at night, the Capella de Cucao. The country on each side of the lake was one un- broken 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 dif- ficulty ; but the Indians managed it in a minute. They brought the cow alongside the boat, which was heeled to- wards 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 bot- tom of the boat, and then lashed her down with ropes. At Cucao, we found an uninhabited hovel (which is the resi- dence of the padre when he pays this Capella a visit), where, lighting a fire, we cooked our supper, and were very comfort- able. 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 scarcelyany sort of commerce, exceptsome- times in a little oil, which they get from seal-blubber. They are pretty well dressed, in clothes of their own manufacture, and they have plenty to eat. They seemed, however, discontented, yet humble to a degree which it was quite painful to witness. The former feeling is, I think, chiefly to be attributed to the harsh and authoritative manner in which they are treated by their rulers. Our companions, although so very civil to us.