impression upon the men; and they
frequently recalled this apparition at the time of their distresses, with
reflections on the neglect of the office they were now fulfilling.

We were soon driven again to the greatest straits for want of something to
subsist upon, by the extreme bad weather that now set in upon us. Wild
sellery was all we could procure, which raked our stomachs instead of
assuaging our hunger. That dreadful and last resource of men, in not much
worse circumstances than ours, of consigning one man to death for the
support of the rest, began to be mentioned in whispers; and indeed there
were some among as who, by eating what they found raw, were become little
better than cannibals. But fortunately for us, and opportunely to prevent
this horrid proceeding, Mr Hamilton at this time found some rotten pieces
of beef cast up by the sea at some miles distance from the huts, which he,
though a temptation which few would have resisted in parallel
circumstances, scorned to conceal from the rest, but generously distributed
among us.

A few days after, the mystery of the nailing up of the hut, and what had
been doing by the Indians upon the island in our absence, was partly
explained to us; for about the 15th day after our return, there came a
party of Indians to the island in two canoes, who were not a little
surprised to find us here again. Among these, was an Indian of the tribe of
the Chonos, who live in the neighbourhood of Chiloe.[117] He talked the
Spanish language, but with that savage accent which renders it almost
unintelligible to any but those who are adepts in that language. He was
likewise a cacique, or leading man of his tribe, which authority was
confirmed to him by the Spaniards; for he carried the usual badge and mark
of distinction by which the Spaniards and their dependants hold their
military and civil employments, which is a stick with a silver head. These
badges, of which the Indians are very vain, at once serve to retain the
cacique in the strongest attachment to the Spanish government, and give him
greater weight with his own dependants: yet, withal, he is the merest
slave, and has not one thing he can call his own.

This report of our shipwreck (as we supposed) having reached the Chonos, by
means of the intermediate tribes, which handed it to one another from those
Indians who first visited us, this cacique was either sent to learn the
truth of the rumour, or, having first got the intellig