reed or
mestees. The want of negroes is easily explained by the poverty of the
islanders; but we are not told how it happens that the other two races
have not intermixed[118]. This is the more remarkable, as a most
extraordinary change has taken place in the language of these islands
during the latter half of the eighteenth century; insomuch that the
language of the Indian inhabitants consists entirely of Spanish words,
but all the inflexions, the syntax, and the idiomatic manner of
expression are Chilese, that is to say exactly corresponding to the
Moluchese dialect of the Chilidugu.

[Footnote 118: Probably the gradations have not been attended to,
because the nice discrimination of ranks has not been deemed worth while
in so poor a country. Perhaps the mestees and their gradations are all
elevated to the rank of Spaniards, or all depressed to that of vassal
Chilotans.--E.]

Both men and women of the Spanish population in Chiloe go barefooted,
except a few of the principal families who sacrifice convenience to
pride; as in a country so continually wet it is safer to go about with
naked feet than to have them in wet coverings. The men universally wear
the _poncho_. The houses, or hovels rather, are all built of wood, and
the crevices are stopped with sheep-skin or rags. The roofs are all
thatched; and the climate is so rainy that this soon rots and must be
frequently renewed. These dwellings consist of a single room, in which
the family, the cattle, and the poultry, are all accommodated. A few of
the inhabitants who can afford superior accommodation, have houses
divided into several apartments, wainscoted within, and roofed with
deal. Being all of wood, fires are frequent occurrences; but as the
houses are scattered, the mischief does not extend. Owing to the
inclemency of the weather, and the miserable state of the roads, a
family in the scattered and solitary situation in which the houses are
placed, is often weeks, and sometimes months without any communication
with their neighbours. There is neither hospital, physician, nor surgeon
in the whole province. A sick person is laid in a bed or a heap of skins
near a large fire, and remains there till recovery or death supervene.
The missionaries who visited these islands could find no books from
which to teach the children to read, and when they wished them to write
there was no paper. Necessity produced a substitute, and they used
wooden boards or tablets, on which th