DECEMBER 6, 1834.
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 miserable hovel it was. The latitude is 43 degrees 10', which
is two degrees farther south than the Rio Negro on the Atlantic
coast. These extreme Christians were very poor, and, under the plea
of their situation, begged for 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 San 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 (Canis
fulvipes), of a kind said to be peculiar to the island, and very
rare in it, and which is a new species, was sitting on the rocks.
He was so intently absorbed in watching the work of the officers,
that I was able, by quietly walking up behind, to knock him on the
head with my geological hammer.
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