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 fifteenth 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.[4] 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 dependents, 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 dependents: 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 intelligence, set out with a view of making some advantage of the wreck, and appropriating such iron-work as he could gather from it to his own use: for that metal is become very valuable to those savages, since their commerce with the Spaniards has taught them to apply it to several purposes. But as the secreting any thing from a rapacious Spanish rey, or governor (even an old rusty nail), by any of their Indian dependents, is a very dangerous offence, he was careful to conceal the little prize he had made, till he could conveniently carry it away; for in order to make friends of these savages, we had left their hoard untouched. [FOOTNOTE 4: Chiloe is an island on the western coast of America, about the 43rd deg. of S. latitude; and the southernmost settlement under the Spanish jurisdiction on that coast.]