be dried within
doors[117]. Bread is consequently a luxury which is reserved for great
occasions; and the want of which is supplied by means of excellent
potatoes, far better than any that are produced in Peru or Chili.

[Footnote 117: In many parts of Norway, the peasants have to win, or
dry, their corn sheaves spitted on wooden spars set upon stakes in the
open air; and a nobleman in the western Scots Highlands, has shades in
which to dry his corn and hay, where the sheaves are hung upon pegs like
herrings in a curing house. Yet bad as is the climate of Chiloe, Iceland
and Kamtshatka can grow no corn at all.--E.]

Apples and strawberries are their only fruit, both of which are good and
plentiful. The woods produce a plant called _quilineja_, much resembling
the _esparto_ or broom of Spain, from which they manufacture their
cables; and they make smaller ropes from several leafless parasitical
plants which twine round the larger trees like vines or bindwood. A
species of wild cane or reed serves to roof their houses, and its leaves
serve as hay or fodder for the few horses which are kept in this
inhospitable country. In that part of the continent which belongs to
this province, there is a tree, called _alerse_ by the Spaniards and
_lahual_ by the Indians, which supplies the principal part of their
exports, as from 50,000 to 60,000 planks of its wood are sent yearly to
Lima. It grows to a large size, and has so even and regular a grain as
to admit of being cleft by wedges into boards or planks of any desired
thickness, even smoother than could be done by a saw. Neither Agueros
nor Falkner had ever seen the tree; but the latter supposed it of the
fir tribe from description, and supposes it might thrive in England if
its seeds could be brought over, as the country in which it grows is as
cold as Britain, and it is reckoned the most valuable timber of that
country both for beauty and duration. The bark of this tree makes
excellent oakum for that part of ships which is under water, but does
not answer when exposed to the sun and air. They export also the wood of
a tree named _luma_, for axle-trees and the poles of carriages; of a
particular kind of hazle for ship-building, which answers excellently
for oars; they likewise make chests and boxes of a species of cypress,
and of a tree named _ciruelillo_.

Hams are a principle article among their exports, as hogs are the most
numerous animals in Chiloe, where they find their o