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Updated: July 20, 2025
Captain Ludlow, we thank you for your politeness, but here is one of my fellows to tell us that my own periagua is arrived; and, wishing you a happy and a long cruise, as we say of lives, I bid you, adieu." The young seaman returned the salutations of the party, with a better grace than his previous solicitude to persuade them to enter his ship, might have given reason to expect.
Then, on the river itself, even at that early hour, was to be seen, fastened to the long stake driven into its bed, or secured by the rude anchor of stone appended to a cable of twisted bark, the light canoe or clumsy periagua of the peasant fisherman, who, ever and anon, drew up from its deep bosom the shoal-loving pickerel or pike, or white or black bass, or whatever other tenant of these waters might chance to affix itself to the traitorous hook.
Both directed themselves towards the open sand-spit, in hopes of being able to reach the periagua which could be seen just drawing up to its point of the bar.
Several of the chiefs entered a large boat, called a periagua. It was made of the trunk of an immense tree, hollowed out, and carved and decorated with immense labor. Such a wooden canoe was capable of holding a large number of warriors. The chiefs crossed the river until they came to within a quarter of a mile of the shore, and then they stopped, and beckoned the strangers to come and meet them.
Though a celibite in his own person, Myndert had not now to learn that the infant god as often does his mischief through this quiet agency, as in any other manner. He became, therefore, mute in his turn, watching the slow movement of the periagua with as much assiduity as if he saw his own image on the water.
But still I found a strong inclination to my attempting an escape, as above, founded on the supposition gathered from the former discourse; viz. that there were seventeen bearded men there; and therefore, without any delay, I went to work with Friday, to find out a great tree proper to fell, and make a large periagua or canoe, to under take the voyage: there were trees enough in the island to have built a little fleet, not of periaguas and canoes only, but even of good large vessels: but the main thing I looked at, was to get one so near the water, that we might launch it when it was made, to avoid the mistake I committed at first.
"Women and winds are only understood, when fairly in motion," returned he of the sash; "now, any mortal who consulted comfort and the skies, would have preferred a passage in Her Majesty's ship Coquette, to one in yonder dancing periagua; and yet the fluttering silk we see, in the boat, tells us there is one who has thought otherwise."
This at length put me upon thinking whether it was not possible to make myself a canoe, or periagua, such as the natives of those climates make, even without tools, or, as I might say, without hands, viz., of the trunk of a great tree.
But when I began to think of putting it in practice, I had such a terror upon my spirits at the remembrance of the danger I had been in that I could not think of it again with any patience; but, on the contrary, I took up another resolution, which was more safe, though more laborious; and this was, that I would build, or rather make me another periagua, or canoe, and so have one for one side of the island, and one for the other.
Re-embarking in the periagua, we returned across the lake, and then mounted our horses. The whole of Chiloe took advantage of this week of unusually fine weather, to clear the ground by burning. In every direction volumes of smoke were curling upwards.
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