The Napos have the provoking apathy of all the New World aborigines. As Humboldt observed of another tribe, "their poverty, stoicism, and uncultivated state render them so rich and so free from wants of every kind, that neither money nor other presents will induce them to turn three steps out of their ways." They maintain a passive dignity in their bearing not seen in the proudest pope or emperor. They seldom laugh or smile, even under the inspiration of chicha, and months of intercourse with them did not discover to us the power of song, though Villavicencio says they do sometimes intone fragments of prose in their festival orgies. They manifest little curiosity, and little power of mimicry, in which wild men generally excel the civilized.[99] The old Spartans were never so laconic. In conversation each says all he has to say in three or four words till his companion speaks, when he replies in the same curt, ejaculatory style. A long sentence, or a number of sentences at one time, we do not remember of hearing from the lips of a Napo Indian.[100]

[Footnote 99: All savages appear to possess to an uncommon degree the power of mimicry.—Darwin.]

[Footnote 100: Gibbon observes of his Indian paddlers on the Marmore: "They talk very little; they silently pull along as though they were sleeping, but their eyes are wandering all the time in every direction."]

The women do most of the work, while their lazy lords drink up the chicha and swing in their hammocks, or possibly do a little hunting.[101] They catch fish with bone hooks, seines, spears, and by poisoning the water with barbasco.[102] This last method is quite common throughout equatorial America. Mashing the root, they throw it into the quiet coves of the river, when almost immediately the fish rise to the surface, first the little fry and then the larger specimens. The poison seems to stupefy rather than kill, for we observed that some individuals behaved in a most lively manner shortly after they were caught. The Indians drink the water with impunity.

[Footnote 101: Some of these feminines, however, have a method of retaliation which happily does not exist further north. They render their husbands idiotic by giving them an infusion of floripondio, and then choose another consort. We saw a sad example of this near Riobamba, and heard of one husband who, after being thus treated, unconsciously served his wife and her new man like a slave. Floripondio is the seed of the Datura sanguinea, which is allied to the poisonous stramonium used by the priests of Apollo at Delphi to produce their frantic ravings.]

[Footnote 102: Jacquinia armillaris, an evergreen bush. The Indians on the Tapajos use a poisonous liana called timbo (Paullinia pinnata).]

The Napos are not brave; their chief weapons for hunting are spears of chonta wood, and blowpipes (bodaqueras) made of a small palm having a pith, which, when removed, leaves a polished bore, or of two separate lengths of wood, each scooped out with patient labor and considerable skill by means of the incisor teeth of a rodent. The whole is smeared with black wax, a mouth-piece fitted to the larger end, and a sight made of bone imbedded in the wax. Through this tube, about ten feet long, they blow slender arrows cut from the leaf-stalks of a palm. These are winged with a tuft of silk-cotton (common cotton would be too heavy), and poisoned with urari, of which we shall speak hereafter. This noiseless gun is universally used on the Upper Amazon.[103]

[Footnote 103: It is there called zarabatana or gravatana; by the Peruvians pucuna. It corresponds to the sumpitan of Borneo. It is difficult to recognize the use of the blow-gun, but the natives will kill at the distance of 150 feet. One which we brought home sent the slender arrow through the panel of a door.]

The Zaparos in physiognomy somewhat resemble the Chinese, having a middle stature, round face, small eyes set angularly, and a broad, flat nose. Their language is of simple construction, but nasal and guttural. They have no words for numbers above three, but show their fingers; above ten they know nothing. They take to themselves single names, not double. They reckon time by moons and the ripening of certain fruits. Their name for God is Piatzo, but we could not learn that it conveyed any distinct idea. They believe the evil spirit, "Mungia," is a black spectre dwelling in the woods. They think the souls of the good and brave enter beautiful birds and feed on delicious fruits, while cowardly souls become dirty reptiles. Polygamy is common. They bury in the sitting posture, with the hammock of the deceased wrapped around him. The very old men are buried with the mouth downward. They make use of a narcotic drink called Ayahuasca, which produces effects similar to those of opium. The Zaparos are pacific and hospitable, but there is little social life among them; they never cluster into large villages, but inhabit isolated ranchos. Nomadic in their habits, they wander along the banks of the Napo, between the Andes and the Maranon. They manufacture, from the twisted fibre of the chambiri-palm,[104] most of the twine and hammocks seen in Eastern Ecuador. Their government is patriarchal.

[Footnote 104: This thorny palm is called tucum in Brazil. The fibres of the budding top are used. A woman will twist a hundred yards of twine a day, and make a living by selling hammocks for twenty-five cents a piece.]

The Jivaros, or "Red Indians" par excellence, are the most numerous and the most spirited of the oriental tribes. They are brave and resentful, yet hospitable and industrious. While the Napos and Zaparos live in rude, often temporary huts of split bamboo, the warlike Jivaros erect houses of hard wood with strong doors. Blood relations live together on the communal principle, the women keeping the rear half of the house, which is divided by a partition. Many Jivaros approach the Caucasian type, the beard and lighter skin hinting a percentage of Spanish blood; for this tribe was never conquered by the Incas, nor did it brook Spanish avarice and cruelty, but in one terrible conflict (1599) the intruder was swept out of existence. The wives of the El Dorado adventurers spent the rest of their days in the harems of the Jivaros. These Indians have the singular custom and art of compressing the heads of their notable captives; taking off the skin entire and drying it over a small mould, they have a hideous mummy which preserves all the features of the original face, but on a reduced scale."[105] They also braid the long black hair of their foes into girdles, which they wear as mementoes of their prowess. They use chonta-lances with triangular points, notched and poisoned, and shields of wood or hide. They have a telegraphic system which enables them to concentrate their forces quickly in time of war; large drums are placed on the tops of the hills, and a certain number of strokes, repeated along the line, rapidly convey intelligence to the most distant habitation.

[Footnote 105: Bates (ii., 132) speaks of a similar custom among the ancient Mundurucus: "They used to sever the head with knives made of broad bamboo, and then, after taking out the brain and fleshy parts, soak it in bitter vegetable oils, and expose it several days over the smoke of a fire, or in the sun."]

An odd custom prevails among these wild Indians when an addition is made to the family circle. The woman goes into the woods alone, and on her return washes herself and new-born babe in the river; then the husband immediately takes to his bed for eight days, during which time the wife serves him on the choicest dainties she can procure.[106] They have also the unique practice of exchanging wives. The Jivaro speech is sonorous and energetic. They do not use salt; so that they distinguish the Napo tribes as the "Indians who eat salt." The chief articles manufactured by them are cotton goods and blowpipes. They trade mostly at Canelos and Macas, generally purchasing iron implements, such as hatchets and knives.

[Footnote 106: A like custom existed among some Brazilian and Guiana tribes. It also prevailed to some extent among the ancient Cantabrians and Corsicans, the Congos and Tartars, and in the Southern French provinces.]

Canelos consists of about seventy families of Quichua-speaking Indians, and lies on the south bank of the Bobonaza. A trail connects it with Banos, at the foot of Tunguragua. Canelos was founded in 1536, and derives its name from its situation in the Canela, or American cinnamon forest. The bark of the tree has the flavor of the Ceylon aromatic; but, according to Dr. Taylor, it is cassia. Macas, in the days of Spanish adventure a prosperous city under the name of "Sevilla de Oro," is now a cluster of huts on the banks of the Upano. Its trade is in tobacco, vanilla, canela, wax, and copal. The Spaniards took the trouble to transplant some genuine cinnamon-trees from Ceylon to this locality, and they flourished for a time.

On the 30th of October we left Quito on our march across the continent, by the way of the Napo wilderness. The preparations for our departure, however, commenced long before that date. To leave Quito in any direction is the work of time. But to plunge into that terra incognita "el Oriente," where for weeks, perhaps months, we should be lost to the civilized world and cut off from all resources, east or west, demanded more calculation and providence than a voyage round the world.

We were as long preparing for our journey to the Amazon as in making it. In the first place, not a man in Quito could give us a single item of information on the most important and dangerous part of our route. Quitonians are not guilty of knowing any thing about trans-Andine affairs or "oriental" geography. From a few petty traders who had, to the amazement of their fellow-citizens, traversed the forest and reached the banks of the Napo, we gleaned some information which was of service. But on the passage down the Napo from Santa Rosa to the Maranon, a distance of over five hundred miles, nobody had any thing to say except the delightful intelligence that in all probability, if we escaped the fever, we would be murdered by the savages. The information we received was about as definite and reliable as Herndon obtained respecting any tributary to the Lower Amazon: "It runs a long way up: it has rapids; savages live upon its banks; every thing grows there." From M. Gillette, a Swiss gentleman trading at Para in Moyabamba hats, we learned about the movements of the Peruvian steamer on the Maranon; but how long it would take us to cross the mountains and the forest, and descend the river, we must find out by trial.

The commissary department was of primal importance. As, from all we could learn, we could not depend upon obtaining supplies from the Indians or with our guns,[107] it was necessary to take provisions to last till we should reach the Maranon. But how long we should be in the forest and on the river, or what allowance to make for probable delays, it was impossible to prophesy. The utmost caution and forethought were therefore needed, for to die of starvation in the wilderness was, for all practical purposes, equivalent to falling into the hands of cannibals. As it turned out, however, we made a most fortunate hit, for on arriving at Pebas—the first village on the Maranon—we found we had just enough solid food left to have one grand jubilee dinner.

[Footnote 107: The scarcity of game is well illustrated by the fate of Pizarro and his comrades. In returning from their expedition to the Napo country, they nearly perished with hunger, living on lizards, dogs, horses, saddles, sword-belts, etc., and reached Quito looking more like spectres than men.]

For the benefit of future travelers, and for the curiosity of others, we give the bill of fare we provided for this journey—stomachs, five; time, forty-two days:

Flour 100 lbs. Corn meal 27 " Pea flour 30 " Mashka 47 " Crackers 100 " Rice 50 " Sugar 90 " Chocolate 25 " Dried meat[108] 47 " Salt 10 " Lard 10 " Cream tartar 1-1/2 " Soda 1 " Tea 2 " Ham 10 " Tamarinds 9 " Eggs 170. Anisado pts. 5.

[Footnote 108: "Jerked beef," as it is called in South America, consists of thin strips cut off the carcass after skinning and dried in the sun. The butchers do not distinguish between sirloin and round.]

To this we added by purchase from the Indians a few chickens and eggs, five gallons of sirup, and a peck of rice; and on the river we helped ourselves to a little wild game, as fish, peccari, deer, and turtles' eggs. But these made only a drop in the commissary bucket; had we depended upon finding provisions on the road, we must have perished from sheer hunger. Game, in the dry season, is exceedingly scarce. Our provisions were packed in kerosene cans, a part of which were soldered up to keep out moisture (for the Valley of the Napo is a steaming vapor-bath) and to keep out the hands of Indians. More than once have these treacherous yet indispensable guides robbed the white man of his food, and then left him to his fate; we lost not a pound by theft. A four-gallon keg of aguardiente,[109] from which we dealt out half a gill daily to each man, kept our Indians in good humor.

[Footnote 109: This is the rum of the Andes, corresponding to the cashaca of Brazil. It is distilled from sugar-cane. When double-distilled and flavored with anise, it is called anisado.]

As we must ascend to the cold altitude of fifteen thousand feet, and then descend to the hot Valley of the Amazon, we were obliged to carry both woolen and cotton garments, besides rubber ponchos to shield them from the rain by day, and to form the first substratum of our bed at night. Two suits were needed in our long travel afoot through the forest; one kept dry for the nightly bivouac, the other for day service. At the close of each day's journey we doffed every thread of our wearing apparel, and donned the reserved suit, for we were daily drenched either from the heavens above or by crossing swollen rivers and seas of mud. Then, too, as boots would not answer for such kind of travel, we must take alpargates, a native sandal made of the aloe fibre, and of these not a few, for a pair would hardly hold together two days. Two bales of lienzo, besides knives, fish-hooks, thread, beads, looking-glasses, and other trinkets, were also needed; for the Napo Indians must be paid in such currency. There lienzo, not gold and silver, is the cry. On this we made a small but lawful profit, paying in Quito eighteen cents per yard, and charging on the river twenty-five.

An extensive culinary apparatus, guns and ammunition, taxidermal and medicinal chests, physical instruments, including a photographic establishment, rope, macheta, axe, saw, nails, candles, matches, and a thousand et caetera, completed our outfit. Among the essential et caetera were generous passports and mandatory letters from the President of Ecuador and the Peruvian Charge d'Affaires, addressed to all authorities on the Napo and the Maranon. They were obligingly procured for us by Senor Hurtado, the Chilian minister (then acting for the United States), through the influence of a communication from our own government, and were of great value to the expedition.[110]

[Footnote 110: The following is a copy of the President's order:

REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR

Ministeria de Estado } Quito a 18 de Octubre,} en el Despacho del Interior.} de 1807. }

APERTORIA.

A las autoridades del transito hasta el Napo, i a los demas empleados civiles i militares de la provincia del Oriente:

El Sor. James Orton, ciudadano de los EE. UU. de America, profesor de la Universidad de Rochester en Nueva-York, i jefe de una comision cientifica del Instituto de Smithsonian de Washington, va a la provincia de Oriente con el objeto de esplorarla en cumplimiento de su encargo. S.E. el Presidenta de la Republica ordena a U.U. presten al espresado Sor. Orton i su comitiva cuantas consideraciones merecen sus personas, i los ausilios i co-operacion que necesiten para verificar su viaje i hacer sus estudios i observaciones.

Dios gue. a U.U.

R. CARVAJAL.

]



CHAPTER XII.

Departure from Quito.—Itulcachi.—A Night in a Bread-tray.—Crossing the Cordillera.—Guamani.—Papallacta.—Domiciled at the Governor's.—An Indian Aristides.—Our Peon Train.—In the Wilderness.

Forty miles east-southeast of Quito, on the eastern slope of the Eastern Cordillera, and on the western edge of the great forest, is the Indian village of Papallacta. From the capital to this point there is a path just passable for horses; but thence to the Napo travelers must take to their feet. Through the intervention of the curate of Papallacta, who has great influence over his wild people, but who has wit enough to reside in Quito instead of his parish, we engaged the Indian governor to send over thirteen beasts and three peons to carry our party and baggage to Papallacta. Wednesday morning the quadrupeds were at the door of our hotel, five of them bestias de silla. These horses, judging by size, color, shape, and bony prominences, were of five different species. The saddles, likewise, differed from one another, and from any thing we had ever seen or desired to see. One of them was so narrow and deep none of us could get into it; so, filling up the cavity with blankets, we took turns in riding on the summit. By noon, October 30th, we had seen our Andean collections in the hands of arrieros bound for Guayaquil, whence they were to be shipped by way of Panama to Washington, and our baggage train for Napo headed toward the rising sun. So, mounting our jades, we defiled across the Grand Plaza and through the street of St. Augustine, and down the Carniceria to the Alameda, amid the vivas and adeos of our Quitonian friends, who turned out to see the largest expedition that ever left the city for the wild Napo country since the days of Pizarro. Few there were who expected to hear of our safe arrival on the shores of the Atlantic.

Crossing the magnificent plain of Inaquito, we reached in an hour the romantic village of Guapulo. Here is an elegant stone church dedicated to the Virgin of Guadaloupe, to which the faithful make an annual pilgrimage. Thence the road led us through the valley of the Guaillabamba (a tributary to the Esmeraldas), here and there blessed with signs of intelligent life—a mud hut, and little green fields of cane and alfalfa, and dotted with trees of wild cherry and myrtle, but having that air of sadness and death-like repose so inseparable from a Quitonian landscape. The greater part of this day's ride was over a rolling country so barren and dreary it was almost repulsive. What a pity the sun shines on so much useless territory!

Just before sunset we arrived at Itulcachi, a great cattle estate at the foot of the eastern chain of mountains. The hacienda had seen better days, and was poorly fitted to entertain man or beast. The major-domo, however, managed to make some small potato soup, and find us shelter for the night. In the room allotted us there were three immense kneading-troughs and two bread-boards to match, for a grist-mill and bakery were connected with the establishment. In default of beds, we made use of this furniture. Five wiser men have slept in better berths, but few have slept more soundly than we did in the bread-trays of Itulcachi.

The following day we advanced five miles to Tablon, an Indian hamlet on the mountain side. Here we waited over night for our cargo train, which had loitered on the road. This was the only spot in South America where we found milk to our stomachs' content; Itulcachi, with its herds of cattle, did not yield a drop. Our dormitory was a mud hovel, without an aperture for light or ventilation, and in this dark hole we all slept on a heap of barley. Splendid was the view westward from Tablon. Below us were the beautiful valleys of Chillo and Puembo, separated by the isolated mountain of Ilalo; around them, in an imposing semicircle, stood Cayambi, Imbabura, Pichincha, Corazon, Iliniza, Ruminagui, Cotopaxi, Sincholagua, and Antisana. As the sun went down in his glory behind the western range, the rocky head of Pichincha stood out in bold relief, and cast a long shadow over the plain. At this halting-place we made the mortifying discovery that the bare-legged Indian who had trotted by our side as a guide and body-servant, and whom we had ordered about with all the indifference of a surly slaveholder, was none other than his Excellency Eugenio Mancheno, governor of Papallacta! After this we were more respectful.

The next morning, our baggage having come up, we pushed up the mountain through a grand ravine, and over metamorphic rocks standing on their edges with a wavy strike, till we reached a polylepis grove, 12,000 feet above the sea. We lunched under the wide-spreading branches of these gnarled and twisted trees, which reminded us of the patriarchal olives in the Garden of Gethsemane, and then, ascending over the monotonous paramo, we stood at the elevation of 15,000 feet on the narrow summit of the Guamani ridge. Some priest had been before us and planted a cross by the roadside, to guide and bless the traveler on his way.

Of the magnificent prospect eastward, over the beginning of the Amazonian Valley, which this lofty point commands, we have already spoken. There was a wild grandeur in the scene—mountain behind mountain, with deep intervening valleys, all covered with one thick, unbroken mass of foliage. A tiny brook, the child of everlasting snows still higher up, murmured at our feet, as if to tell us that we were on the Atlantic slope, and then dashed into the great forest, to lose itself in the mighty Amazon, and be buried with it in the same ocean grave. The trade-wind, too, came rushing by us fresh from that sea of commerce which laves the shores of two worlds. Guamani gave us also our finest view of Antisana, its snow-white dome rising out of a wilderness of mountains, and presenting on the north side a profile of the human face divine.

And now we rapidly descended by a steep, narrow path, and over paramo and bog, to a little tambo, where we had the luxury of sleeping on a bed of straw. Here we made the acquaintance of two Indians from the Napo, who were on the way to Quito with the mail—probably half a dozen letters. A strip of cloth around the loins, and a short cape just covering the shoulders, were all their habiliments. We noticed that they never sat down, though a bench was close by them; they would squat for an hour at a time. The day following we took our last horseback ride in South America. It was short, but horrible. Through quagmire and swamp, and down a flight of rocky stairs, in striking imitation of General Putnam's famous ride—over rocks, too, made wondrously slippery by a pitiless rain, but which our unshod Indian horses descended with great dexterity, only one beast and his rider taking a somerset—thus we traveled two hours, reaching Papallacta at 11 A.M.

We put up at the governor's. This edifice, the best in town, had sides of upright poles stuccoed with mud, a thatched roof, and ground floor, on which, between three stones, a fire was built for cookery and comfort. Three or four earthen kettles, and as many calabashes and wooden spoons, were the sum total of kitchen utensils. A large flat stone, with another smaller one to rub over it, was the mill for grinding corn; and we were astonished to see how quickly our hostess reduced the grains to an impalpable meal. The only thing that looked like a bed was a stiff rawhide thrown over a series of round poles running lengthwise. This primitive couch, and likewise the whole house, the obsequious governor gave up to us, insisting upon sleeping with his wife and little ones outside, though the nights were cold and uncomfortable. Parents and children were of the earth, earthy—unwashed, uncombed, and disgustingly filthy. We found the governor one day taking lice for his lunch. Sitting behind his little boy, he picked out the little parasites with his nails, and crushed them between his teeth with a look of satisfaction. Eating lice is an old Indian custom, and universal in the Andes. In Inca times it was considered an infallible remedy against sore eyes. We have seen half a dozen women sitting on the ground in a row, picking out vermin from each other's heads. We thought the arrangement was a little unfair, for the first in the series had no lice to eat, and the animals were left to roam undisturbed in the capillary forest of the last.

Papallacta is a village of thirty dwellings, situated in a deep valley on the north slope of Antisana, nearly surrounded by an amphitheatre of sandstone and basaltic precipices. Here, too, is the terminus of the fourth great lava stream from the volcano; it is not mentioned by Humboldt. Papallacta is a thousand feet higher than Quito, yet vegetation is more tropical. Its name signifies "the potato country," but not a potato could we find here. Though Mancheno was governor, he was not really the greatest man in Papallacta. This was Carlos Caguatijo; he was the ruling man, for he could read, write, and speak Spanish, while the governor knew nothing but Quichua. Carlos, moreover, was a good man; he had an honest, Quaker-like air about him, and his face reminded us of George Washington's. In all his transactions we noticed no attempt to prevaricate or deceive; what he promised he performed to the letter. It was refreshing to meet one such upright soul in Ecuador, though we found him not of Caucasian blood, nor dwelling under the tiled roofs of the proud capital. The old man was the spiritual father of Papallacta, and, in the absence of the curate, officiated in the little church. With him, therefore, and not with our host the governor, we negotiated for peons to take us through the wilderness.

The journey from Papallacta to the Napo occupied us thirteen days, including four days of rest. It was performed on foot, for the "road" is a trail. But the untraveled reader can have little idea of a trail in a tropical forest: fording bridgeless rivers, wading through interminable bogs, fens, marshes, quagmires, and swamps, and cutting one's way through dense vegetation, must be done to be understood. Half the year there is no intercourse between Quito and its Oriental province, for the incessant heavy rains of summer swell every rivulet into a furious torrent, and the path is overgrown and rendered impassable even by an Indian. The only time for travel is between November and April, for then, though it rains nearly every day, the clouds drop down in showers, not floods. But even then the traveler must sometimes wait two or three weeks beside a swollen river in imminent danger of starving, and throughout the journey entertain the comforting prospect that his Indians may eat up his provisions to lighten their load, or suddenly desert him as they did Dr. Jameson. There are other routes across South America much more feasible than the one we chose; these will be described in Chapter XXIII. But they all yield in interest to this passage along the equatorial line, and especially in the line of history. Who has not heard of Gonzalo Pizarro and his fatal yet famous expedition into "the land of cinnamon?" How he was led farther and farther into the wilderness by the glittering illusions of an El Dorado,[111] till the faithless Orellana, deserting him, floated down the Napo and made the magnificent discovery of the mighty Amazon. Gonzalo, "who was held to be the best lancer that ever went to these countries—and all confess that he never showed his back to the enemy"—returned to Quito with a few survivors to tell a tale of almost unparalleled suffering. A century elapsed (1530-1637) before any one ascended from Para to Quito by way of the Rio Napo; this was accomplished by Pedro Teixeira.



[Footnote 111: The king of this fabulous land was said to wear a magnificent attire fragrant with a costly gum, and sprinkled with gold dust. His palace was of porphyry and alabaster, and his throne of ivory.]

An Indian will carry three arrobas (seventy-five pounds) besides his own provisions, his provisions for the journey consisting of about twenty-five pounds of roasted corn and barley-meal. The trunk or bundle is bound to his back by withes, which pass across the forehead and chest; a poncho or a handful of leaves protects the bare back from chafing. All our luggage (amounting to nearly fifteen hundred pounds) was divided and packed to suit this method of transportation, so that we required twenty Indians. So many, however, of the right kind—for they must be athletic young men to endure the fatigues of such a journey—could not be furnished by the little village of Papallacta, so we were obliged to wait a few days till more Indians could be summoned from a neighboring town. When these arrived, the little world of Papallacta, men, women, and children, assembled in front of the governor's house, while Don Carlos sat by our side on a raised seat by the doorway. A long parley ensued, resulting in this: that we should pay one hundred Ecuadorian dollars for the transfer of our baggage to Archidona; while Carlos solemnly promised for the young men that they should start the next morning, that they should arrive at Archidona within a stipulated time, and that they should not depend upon us for an ounce of food. The powerful influence of the curate, which we had secured, and the proclamation from the president, which Carlos read aloud in the ears of all the people, together with the authoritative charge of Carlos himself, had the desired effect; not a transportation company in the United States ever kept its engagement more faithfully than did these twenty peons—and this, too, though we paid them in advance, according to the custom of the country. Upon a blanket spread at our feet the money was counted out, and Carlos slowly distributed it with a grave and reverend air, to every Indian five dollars.[112]

[Footnote 112: We give below the autograph of this wisest man in all the Oriente: "Recibio del Senor James Orton la suma de centos (100) pesos por vente (20) peones hasta Archidona.



"Papallacta, 4 Nov., 1867."]

Tuesday morning, November 5th, the peons promptly shouldered their burdens, and we, shod with alpargates, and with Alpine staff in hand (more needed here than in Switzerland), followed after, leaving the governor to sleep inside his mansion, and to eat his lice unmolested. On a little grassy knoll just outside the town our train halted for a moment—the Indians to take their fill of chicha, and bid their friends good-by, and we to call the roll and take an inventory. Our leader was Isiro, a bright, intelligent, finely-featured, stalwart Indian. He could speak Spanish, and his comrades acknowledged his superiority with marked deference. Ten women and children followed us for two days, to relieve the men of their burdens. Their assistance was not needed in the latter part of the journey, for our keen appetites rapidly lightened the provision cans. Starting again, we plunged at once into the forest, taking a northeasterly course along the left bank of a tributary to the Coca. The ups and downs of this day's travel of twelve miles were foreshadowings of what might come in our "views afoot" in South America. We encamped at a spot the Indians called Maspa. Herndon says: "The (Peruvian) Indians take no account of time or distance; they stop when they get tired, and arrive when God pleases."[113] But our Napo companions measured distance by hours quite accurately, and they always traveled as far as we were willing to follow. In ten minutes they built us a booth for the night; driving two crotchets into the ground, they joined them with a ridge-pole, against which they inclined a number of sticks for rafters. These they covered with palm-leaves, so adroitly put together that our roof was generally rain-proof. After ablution and an entire change of garments, we built a fire, using for fuel a green tree called sindicaspi (meaning the wood that burns), a special provision in these damp forests where every thing is dripping with moisture. The fall of a full-grown tree under the strokes of a Yankee axe was a marvel in the eyes of our Indians. Our second day's journey was far more difficult than the first, the path winding up steep mountains and down into grand ravines, for we were crossing the outlying spurs of the Eastern Cordillera. Every where the track was slippery with mud, and often we sank two feet into the mire. How devoutly we did wish that the Ecuadorian Congress was compelled to travel this horrid road once a year! At 10 o'clock we reached a lone habitation called Guila, where wooden bowls are made for the Quito market. Here we procured a fresh Indian to take the place of one of our peons who had given out under his burden. We advanced this day sixteen miles in ten hours, sleeping under an old bamboo hut beside a babbling brook bearing the euphonious name of Pachamama.

[Footnote 113: "Distance is frequently estimated by the time that a man will occupy in taking a chew of coca," or 37-1/2 minutes.—Herndon.]



CHAPTER XIII.

Baeza.—The Forest.—Crossing the Cosanga.—Curi-urcu.—Archidona.—Appearance, Customs, and Belief of the Natives.—Napo and Napo River.

Eight hours' hard travel from Pachamama brought us to Baeza. This "Antigua Ciudad," as Villavicencio calls it, was founded in 1552 by Don Egilio Ramirez Davalos, and named after the quite different spot where Scipio the Younger routed Asdrubal a thousand years before. It consists of two habitations, the residence of two families of Tumbaco Indians, situated in a clearing of the forest on the summit of a high ridge running along the right bank of the Coca. This point, about one hundred miles east of Quito, is important in the little traffic of the Oriente. All Indian trains from the capital to the province pass through Baeza, where the trail divides; one branch passing on easterly to San Jose, and thence down through Abila and Loreto to Santa Rosa; the other leading to the Napo through Archidona. Here we rested one day, taking possession of one half of the larger hut—a mere stockade with a palm-leaf roof, without chairs, chimney, or fire-place, except any place on the floor. We swung our hammocks, while our Indians stretched themselves on the ground beneath us. The island of Juan Fernandez is not a more isolated spot than Baeza. A dense forest, impenetrable save by the trails, stretches away on every side to the Andes and to the Atlantic, and northerly and southerly along the slope of the entire mountain chain. The forest is such an entangled mass of the living and the fallen, it is difficult to say which is the predominant spirit—life or death. It is the cemetery, as well as the birthplace, of a world of vegetation. The trees are more lofty than on the Lower Amazon, and straight as an arrow, but we saw none of remarkable size. A perpetual mist seems to hang on the branches, and the dense foliage forms dark, lofty vaults, which the sunlight never enters. The soil and air are always cool, and never dry. Every thing is penetrated with dampness. All our watches stopped, and remained immovable till we reached Para. It is this constant and excessive humidity which renders it so difficult to transport provisions or prepare an herbarium. The pending branches of moss are so saturated with moisture that sometimes the branches are broken off to the peril of the passing traveler. Yet the climate is healthy. The stillness and gloom are almost painful; the firing of a gun wakes a dull echo, and any unlooked-for noise is startling. Scarce a bird or a flower is to be seen in these sombre shades. Nearly the only signs of animal life visible thus far were insects, mostly butterflies, fire-flies, and beetles. The only quadruped seen on our journey to the Napo was a long-tailed marten caught by the Indians. The silence is almost perfect; its chief interruption is the crashing fall of some old patriarch of the forest, overcome by the embrace of loving parasites that twine themselves about the trunk or sit upon the branches. The most striking singularity in these tropical woods is the host of lianas or air-roots of epiphytous plants, which hang down from the lofty boughs, straight as plumb-lines, some singly, others in clusters; some reaching half way to the ground, others touching it and striking their rootlets into the earth. We found lianas over one hundred feet long. Sometimes a toppling tree is caught in the graceful arms of looping sipos, and held for years by this natural cable. It is these dead trunks, standing like skeletons, which give a character of solemnity to these primeval woods. The wildest disorder is seen along the mountain torrents, where the trees, prostrated by the undermining current, lie mingled with huge stones brought down by the force of the water. In many places the crowns of stately monarchs standing on the bank interlock and form a sylvan arch over the river.

We left Baeza by the southerly trail for Archidona. From Papallacta we had traveled east, or parallel to the streams which flow down from the mountains. We were now to cross them (and their name is legion), as also the intervening ridges; so that our previous journey was nothing to that which followed. Sometimes we were climbing up an almost vertical ascent, then descending into a deep, dark ravine, to ford a furious river; while on the lowlands the path seemed lost in a jungle of bamboos, till our Indian "bushwhackers" opened a passage with their machetas, and we crept under a low arcade of foliage. This day we enjoyed something unusual in our forest trail—a distant view. The path brought us to the verge of a mountain, whence we could look down on the savage valley of the Cosanga and upward to the dazzling dome of Antisana; it was our farewell view of that glorious volcano. At the distance of twelve miles from Baeza we reached the banks of the Rio Cosanga, camping at a spot called Chiniplaya. This is the river so much dreaded by Indians and whites traversing the Napo wilderness. It is fearfully rapid—a very Tigris from its source to its junction with the Coca. The large, smooth boulders strewn along its bed show its power. Here, sixty miles from its origin in the glaciers of Antisana, it is seventy-five feet wide, but in the wet season it is one hundred yards. The day following we threaded our difficult way, a via dolorosa, fifteen miles up the left bank of the Cosanga, where we crossed and camped on the opposite side. The Indians had thrown a log over the deepest part of the river, and the rest we forded without much danger; but that very night the rain raised the river to such a magnitude that the little bridge was carried off. Had we been one day later, we might have waited a week on the other side of the impassable gulf. Between this point where we forded and Chiniplaya, fifteen miles below, the barometer indicated a fall of five hundred feet. The roar of the rushing waters is like that of the sea. In the beautiful language of Darwin (Journal, p. 316): "The sound spoke eloquently to the geologist; the thousands and thousands of stones, which, striking against each other, made the one dull, uniform sound, were all hurrying in one direction. It was like thinking on time, when the minute that now glides past is irrecoverable. So was it with these stones. The ocean is their eternity, and each note of that wild music told of one more step toward their destiny."

On account of the heavy rain and the sickness of a peon, whom finally we were obliged to leave behind, we rested one day; but on the morrow we traveled fourteen miles, crossing the lofty Guacamayo ridge,[114] fording at much risk the deep Cochachimbamba, and camping at a spot (the Indians have a name for almost any locality in the forest) called Guayusapugaru. The next day we must have advanced twenty miles, besides crossing the furious Hondachi. This river was very much swollen by the rains, and it was only by the aid of a rope that we made the passage. One stout Indian was carried down stream, but soon recovered himself.

[Footnote 114: Humboldt speaks of this as an active volcano, "from which detonations are heard almost daily." We heard nothing. It is possible that he meant Guamani.]

As we had lowered our altitude since leaving Papallacta seven thousand feet, the climate was much warmer, and vegetation more prolific. Nowhere else between the Andes and the Atlantic did we notice such a majestic forest. The tree-ferns, ennobled by the tropical sun and soil, have a palm-like appearance, but with rougher stems and a usual height of fifty feet. Plants akin to our "scouring rush" rise twenty-five feet. We saw to-day the "water tree," or huadhuas of the natives, a kind of bamboo, which sometimes yields between the joints two quarts of clear, taste-less water. Late in the evening we reached an old rancho called Curi-urcu ("the mountain of gold"); but we had traveled so far ahead of our cargo-train we did not see it again till the next morning. We were obliged, therefore, to sleep on the ground in our wet clothes, and put up with hard commons—half parched corn, which our Indian guides gave us, and unleavened cakes or flour-paste baked on the coals. Thence, after a short day's journey of ten miles, we arrived at Archidona, by a path, however, that was slippery with a soft yellow clay. We were a sorry-looking company, soaked by incessant rains, exhausted by perspiration, plastered with mud, tattered, and torn; but we were kindly met by the Jesuit bishop, who took us to his own habitation, where one Indian washed our feet, and another prepared a most refreshing drink of guayusa tea. We then took up our quarters at the Government House, opposite the bishop's, sojourning several days on account of our swollen feet, and also on account of a swollen river which ran between us and the Napo. Here we made a valuable collection of birds, lizards, fishes, and butterflies.

Archidona is situated in a beautiful plain on the high northern bank of the Misagualli, two thousand feet above the Atlantic. The site is a cleared spot in the heart of an almost boundless forest; and it was a relief, not easily conceived, to emerge from beneath the dense leafy canopy into this open space and look up to the sky and to the snowy Andes. The climate is uniform and delightful, the mean annual temperature being seventy-seven degrees. Sand-flies, however, resembling our "punkies," abound; and the natives are constantly slapping their naked sides, eating the little pests as the Papallactans do their lice.[115] Archidona is the largest village in the Napo country, containing about five hundred souls. The houses are of split bamboo and palm-thatch, often hid in a plantation of yuca and plantain. The central and most important structure is the little church; its rude belfry, portico, chancel, images, and other attempts at ornament remind us of the fitting words of Mrs. Agassiz, that "there is something touching in the idea that these poor, uneducated people of the forest have cared to build themselves a temple with their own hands, lavishing upon it such ideas of beauty and taste as they have, and bringing at least their best to their humble altar." Founded by Davalos in 1560, Archidona has been a missionary station for two hundred years. The people are child-like and docile, but the bishop confessed there was no intellectual advance. Every morning and evening, at the tinkling of a little bell, all Archidona assembled in the open porch, where the bishop taught them to sing and pray. It was a novel sight to see these children of the forest coming out of the woods on all sides and running up to the temple—for these natives, whenever they move, almost invariably go on a run. The men are tall and slim and of a dark red color, and their legs are bent backward at the knees. The governor was the only portly individual we saw. The women are short, with high shoulders, and are very timid; they seldom stand erect, and with the knees bent forward they run sneakingly to church. Their eyes have a characteristic, soft, drooping look. They carry their babes generally on the hip; not on the back, as in Quito. The men are hatless, shirtless, and shoeless; their only garments are short drawers, about six inches long, and little ponchos, both of lienzo, dyed a dark purple with achote—the red seeds of the bixa, which the cooks of Quito use to color their soups. All paint their bodies with the same pigment. The women wear a frock reaching from the waist to the knees; it is nothing more than a yard or two of lienzo wound around the body. The Archidonians are the most Christianized of all the Napo Indians, but they can not be called religious. Their rites (they can hardly be said to have a creed) are the a, b, c, of Romanism, mingled with some strange notions—the relics of a lost paganism. They are very superstitious, and believe, as before remarked, in the transmigration of souls. Maniacs they think are possessed by an evil demon, and therefore are treated with great cruelty. Negroes (of whom a few specimens have come up the Napo from Brazil) are held to be under the ban of the Almighty, and their color is ascribed to the singeing which they got in the flames of hell. They do not believe in disease; but, like the Mundurucus on the Tapajos, say that death is always caused by the sorceries of an enemy. They usually bury in the church or in the tambo of the deceased. Celibacy and polygamy, homicide and suicide, are rare.

[Footnote 115: The Chasuta Indians, Herndon says, eat musquitoes that they catch on their bodies with the idea of restoring the blood which the insect has abstracted.]

The only sign of industry in Archidona is the manufacture of pita thread from the aloe. It is exported to Quito on human backs. The inhabitants also collect copal at the headwaters of the Hondachi, and use it for illumination. It can be bought in Archidona for three or four cents a pound. The gum exudes from a lofty leguminous tree having an oak-like bark. It resembles the anime of Madagascar rather than the copal of India, which flows from an entirely different tree. Guayusa, or "Napo tea," is another and celebrated production of Archidona. It is the large leaf of a tall shrub growing wild. An infusion of guayusa, like the mate of Paraguay (which belongs to the same genus Ilex), is so refreshing it supplies for a long time the place of food. The Indians will go to Quito on this beverage alone, its virtues being similar to those of coca, on the strength of which the posts of the Incas used to travel incredible distances. It is by no means, however, such a stimulant. It is a singular fact, observes Dr. Jameson, that tea, coffee, cacao, mate, and guayusa contain the same alkaloid caffeine. The last, however, contains only one fifteenth as much of the active principle as tea, and no volatile oil. Herndon found guayusa on the Ucayali.

At Archidona we took a new set of peons for Napo, as the Papallactans do not travel farther. The distance is sixteen miles, and the path is comparatively good, though it crosses two rivers, the Misagualli and Tena. On this journey we found the only serpent seen since leaving Quito. This solitary specimen was sluggish and harmless, but exceedingly beautiful. It was the Amphisboena fuliginosa, or "slow-worm." It lives in the chambers of the Saueba ants. We met a procession of these ants, each carrying a circular piece of a leaf vertically over its head. These insects are peculiar to tropical America, and are much dreaded in Brazil, where they soon despoil valuable trees of their foliage. They cut the leaves with their scissor-like jaws, and use them to thatch the domes at the entrance of their subterranean dwellings.

At Napo we took possession of the governor's house. Each village in the Napo province was obliged to build an edifice of split bamboo for that dignitary; and, as he no longer exists, they are left unoccupied. They generally stand on the highest and best site in the town, and are a god-send to travelers. Immediately on our arrival, the Indian governor and his staff of justices called to see what we wanted, and during our stay supplied us with chickens, eggs, plantains, yucas, and fuel. His excellency would always come, silver-headed cane in hand, though the justices had only six eggs or a single fowl to bring us. The alcalde also paid us his respects. He is an old blanco (as the whites are called), doing a little traffic in gold dust, lienzo, and pita, but is the highest representative of Ecuador in the Napo country. Here, too, we met, to our great delight, Mr. George Edwards, a native of Connecticut, who has settled himself, probably for life, in the depths of this wilderness. He was equally rejoiced to see the face and hear the speech of a countryman. His industry and upright character have won for him the respect and good-will of the Indians, and he is favorably known in Quito. The government has given him a tract of land on the Yusupino, two miles west of Napo village. Here he is cultivating vanilla, of which he has now three thousand plants, and also his patience, for six years elapse after transplanting before a pod appears. He has been so long in the country (thirteen years) his English would now and then run off into Spanish or Quichua.

Napo is prettily situated on the left bank of the Rio Napo, a dense forest inclosing it on every side. The maximum number of inhabitants is eighty families; but many of these are in town only in festival seasons. It was well for us that we reached the Napo during the feasts; otherwise we might not have found men enough to man our canoes down the river. There are three or four blancos, petty merchants, who follow the old Spanish practice of compulsory sales, forcing the Indians to take lienzo, knives, beads, etc., at exorbitant prices, and making them pay in gold dust and pita. This kind of commerce is known under the name of repartos. It is hard to find an Indian whose gold or whose labor is not claimed by the blancos. The present and possible productions of this region are: bananas, plantains, yucas,[116] yams, sweet potatoes, rice, beans, corn, lemons, oranges, chirimoyas, anonas (a similar fruit to the preceding), pine-apples, palm cabbages, guavas, guayavas, castor-oil beans, coffee, cacao, cinnamon, India-rubber, vanilla (two kinds),[117] chonta-palm nuts, sarsaparilla, contrayerva (a mint), tobacco (of superior quality), and guayusa; of woods, balsam, red wood, Brazil wood, palo de cruz, palo de sangre, ramo caspi, quilla caspi, guayacan (or "holy wood," being much used for images), ivory palm, a kind of ebony, cedar, and aguana (the last two used for making canoes); of dyewoods, sarne (dark red), tinta (blue), terriri, and quito (black); of gums, estoraque (a balsam) and copal, besides a black beeswax, the production of a small (Trigona) bee, that builds its comb in the ground; of manufactures, pita, hammocks, twine, calabashes, aguardiente (from the plantain), chicha (from the yuca),[118] sugar and molasses (from the cane, which grows luxuriantly), and manati-lard; of minerals, gold dust. The gold, in minute spangles, is washed down by the rivers at flood time, chiefly from the Llanganati Mountains. The articles desired in exchange are lienzo, thread, needles, axes, hoes, knives, fish-hooks, rings, medals, crosses, beads, mirrors, salt, and poison. Quito nearly monopolizes the trade; though a few canoes go down the Napo to the Maranon after salt and poison. The salt comes from near Chasuta, on the Huallaga;[119] the urari from the Ticuna Indians. It takes about twenty days to paddle down to the Maranon, and three months to pole up. The Napo is navigable for a flat-bottomed steamer as far as Santa Rosa,[120] and it is a wonder that Anglo-Saxon enterprise has not put one upon these waters. The profits would be great, as soon as commercial relations with the various tribes were established.[121] Four yards of coarse cotton cloth, for example, will exchange for one hundred pounds of sarsaparilla. Urari is sold at Napo for its weight in silver. By a decree of the Ecuadorian Congress, there will be no duty on foreign goods entering the Napo for twenty years. The Napo region, under proper cultivation, would yield the most valuable productions of either hemisphere in profusion. But agriculture is unknown; there is no word for plow. The natives spend most of their time in idleness, or feasting and hunting. Their weapons are blow-guns and wooden spears; our guns they call by a word which signifies "thunder and lightning." Laying up for the future or for commerce is foreign to their ideas. The houses are all built of bamboo tied together with lianas, and shingled with leaves of the sunipanga palm. The Indians are peaceful, good-natured, and idle. They seldom steal any thing but food. Their only stimulants are chicha, guayusa, and tobacco. This last they roll up in plantain leaves and smoke, or snuff an infusion of it through the nose from the upper bill of a toucan. "The Peruvians (says Prescott, quoting Garcilasso) differ from every other Indian nation to whom tobacco was known by using it only for medicinal purposes in the form of snuff." There is no bread on the Napo; the nearest approach to flour is yuca starch. There are no clocks or watches; time is measured by the position of the sun. The mean temperature at Napo village is about one degree warmer than that of Archidona. Its altitude above the sea is 1450 feet. The nights are cool, and there are no musquitoes; but sand-flies are innumerable. Jiggers also have been seen. There are no well-defined wet and dry seasons; but the most rain falls in May, June, and July. The lightning, Edwards informed us, seldom strikes. Dysentery, fevers, and rheumatism are the prevailing diseases; and we saw one case of goitre. But the climate is considered salubrious. Few twins are born; and there are fewer children than in Archidona—a difference ascribed by some to the exposure of the Napo people in gold washing; by others to the greater quantity of guayusa drunk by the Archidonians.

[Footnote 116: Sometimes called yuca dulce, or sweet yuca, to distinguish it from the yuca brava, or wild yuca, the mandioca of the Amazon, from which farina is made. The yuca is the beet-like root of a little tree about ten feet high. It is a good substitute for potatoes and bread.]

[Footnote 117: Vanilla belongs to the orchid family, and is the only member which possesses any economical value. It is a graceful climber and has a pretty star-like flower.]

[Footnote 118: In Peru, the liquor made from yuca is called masato.]

[Footnote 119: Rock-salt is found on both sides of the Andes. "The general character of the geology of these countries would rather lead to the opinion that its origin is in some way connected with volcanic heat at the bottom of the sea."—Darwin's Observations, pt. iii., p. 235.]

[Footnote 120: "The Napo (Herndon was told) is very full of sand-banks, and twenty days from its mouth (or near the confluence of the Curaray) the men have to get overboard and drag the canoes!"—Report, p. 229.]

[Footnote 121: The chief difficulty throughout the Upper Amazon is in getting the Indians to concentrate along the bank. But honorable dealing would accomplish this in time.]

The Napo is the largest river in the republic. From its source in the oriental defiles of Cotopaxi and Sincholagua to its embouchure at the Maranon, its length is not far from eight hundred miles, or about twice that of the Susquehanna.[122] From Napo village to the mouth of the river our barometer showed a fall of a thousand feet. At Napo the current is six miles an hour; between Napo and Santa Rosa there are rapids; and between Santa Rosa and the Maranon the rate is not less than four miles an hour. At Napo the breadth is about forty yards; at Coca the main channel is fifteen hundred feet wide; and at Camindo it is a full Spanish mile. Below Coca the river throws out numerous canals, which, isolating portions of the forest-clad lowlands, create numerous picturesque islands. Around and between them the river winds, usually making one bend in every league. The tall trees covering them are bound together by creeping plants into a thick jungle, the home of capybaras and the lair of the jaguar. The islands, entirely alluvial, are periodically flooded, and undergo a constant round of decay and renovation. Indeed, the whole river annually changes its channel, so that navigation is somewhat difficult. The Indians, on coming to a fork, were frequently at a loss to know which was the main channel. Then, too, the river is full of snags and plaias, or low, shelving sand-banks, rising just above the water-level—the resort of turtles during the egg season. It was interesting to trace the bed of the river as we floated down; on the rapid slope of the Cordilleras rushing over or rolling along huge boulders, which farther on were rapidly reduced in size, till, in time, boulders were broken into pebbles, pebbles turned into sand, and sand reduced to impalpable mud.[123] The plaias are not auriferous. Below Coca there is a wilderness of lagunes, all connected with the river, the undisturbed retreat of innumerable water-fowl. The only spot on the Napo where the underlying rocks are exposed is near Napo village. There it is a dark slate, gently dipping east. Farther west, in fact, throughout this side of the Andes, the prevailing rock is mica-schist. But the entire Napo country is covered with an alluvial bed, on the average ten feet thick.

[Footnote 122: Its actual source is the Rio del Valle, which runs northward through the Valle Vicioso. Its longest tributary, the Curaray, rises only a few miles to the south in the Cordillera de los Mulatos. The two rivers run side by side 4 deg. of longitude before meeting. Coca, the northern branch, originates in the flanks of Cayambi. The Napo and its branches are represented incorrectly in every map we have examined. The Aguarico is confounded with the Santa Maria and made too long, and the Curaray is represented too far above the mouth of the Napo. There are no settlements between Coca and Camindo.]

[Footnote 123: From specimens of sand which we obtained at different points in descending the river, we find that at Coca it contains 17.5 per cent. of pure quartz grains, the rest being colored dark with augite: at the mouth of the Napo there is 50 per cent. of pure quartz, the other half being light-colored and feldspathic.]



CHAPTER XIV.

Afloat on the Napo.—Down the Rapids.—Santa Rosa and its mulish Alcalde.—Pratt on Discipline.—Forest Music.—Coca.—Our Craft and Crew.—Storm on the Napo.

We embarked November 20th on our voyage down the river. It is no easy matter to hire or cajole the Indians for any service. Out of feast-time they are out of town, and during the festival they are loth to leave, or are so full of chicha they do not know what they want. We first woke up the indolent alcalde by showing him the President's order, and then used him to entice or to compel (we know not his motive power) eight Indians, including the governor, to take us to Santa Rosa. We paid them about twenty-four yards of lienzo, the usual currency here. They furnished three canoes, two for baggage and one covered with a palm-leaf awning for ourselves. The canoes were of red cedar, and flat-bottomed; the paddles had oval blades, to which short, quick strokes were given perpendicularly to the water entering and leaving. But there was little need of paddling on this trip.

The Napo starts off in furious haste, for the fall between Napo village and Santa Rosa, a distance of eighty miles, is three hundred and fifty feet. We were about seven hours in the voyage down, and it takes seven days to pole back. The passage of the rapids is dangerous to all but an Indian. As Wallace says of a spot on the Rio Negro, you are bewildered by the conflicting motions of the water. Whirling and boiling eddies burst as if from some subaqueous explosion; down currents are on one side of the canoe, and an up current on the other; now a cross stream at the bows and a diagonal one at the stern, with a foaming Scylla on your right and a whirling Charybdis on the left. But our nervousness gave way to admiration as our popero, or pilot, the sedate governor, gave the canoe a sheer with the swoop of his long paddle, turning it gracefully around the corner of a rock against which it seemed we must be dashed, and we felt like joining in the wild scream of the Indians as our little craft shot like an arrow past the danger and down the rapids, and danced on the waters below.

In four hours we were abreast the little village of Aguano; on the opposite bank we could see the tambos of the gold washers. At 5 P.M. we reached the deserted site of Old Santa Rosa, the village having been removed a few years ago on account of its unhealthy location. It is now overgrown with sour orange and calabash trees, the latter bearing large fruit shells so useful to the Indians in making pilches or cups. In pitch darkness and in a drizzling rain we arrived at New Santa Rosa, and swung our hammocks in the Government House.

Santa Rosa, once the prosperous capital of the Provincia del Oriente, now contains about two hundred men, women, and children. The town is pleasantly situated on the left bank of the river, about fifteen feet above the water level. A little bamboo church, open only when the missionary from Archidona makes his annual visit, stood near our quarters. The Indians were keeping one of their seven feasts in a hut near by, and their drumming was the last thing we heard as we turned into our hammocks, and the first in the morning. The alcalde, Pablo Sandoval, is the only white inhabitant, and he is an Indian in every respect save speech and color. His habitation is one of the largest structures on the Napo; the posts are of chonta-palm, the sides and roof of the usual material—split bamboo and palm leaves. It is embowered in a magnificent grove of plantains and papayas. In the spacious vestibule is a bench, on which the Indian governor and his staff seat themselves every morning to confer with the alcalde. In one corner stands a table (the only one we remember seeing on the Napo); on the opposite side are heaped up jars, pots, kettles, hunting and fishing implements, paddles, bows and arrows. Between the posts swing two chambiri hammocks. From Santa Rosa to Para the hammock answers for chair, sofa, tete-a-tete, and bed. When a stranger enters, he is invited to sit in a hammock; and at Santa Rosa we were always presented with a cup of guayusa; in Brazil with a cup of coffee. Sandoval wore nothing but shirt and pantaloons; the dignity of the barefooted functionary was confined to his Spanish blood. He had lived long among the Zaparos; and from him, his daughter, and a Zaparo servant, we obtained much valuable information respecting that wild and little-known tribe.



At Santa Rosa we procured Indians and canoes for the Maranon. This was not easily done. The Indians seemed reluctant to quit their feasts and go on such a long voyage, and the alcalde was unwilling they should go, and manufactured a host of lies and excuses. He declared there was but one large canoe in town, and that we must send to Suno for another, and for men to man it. There were indeed few Indians in Santa Rosa, for while we were disputing a largo number went off with shoutings down the river, to spend weeks in the forest hunting monkeys.[124] It was a stirring sight to see these untamed red men in the depths of the Napo wilderness starting on a monkey crusade; but it was still more stirring to think of paddling our own canoe down to Brazil. After some time lost in word-fighting, we tried the virtues of authority. We presented the president's order, which commanded all civil and military powers on the Napo to aid, and not to hinder, the expedition; then we put into his hand an official letter from the alcalde of Napo (to whom Pablo was subordinate), which, with a flourish of dignified Spanish, threatened Santa Rosa with the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah if any impediment was placed in our way.

[Footnote 124: Monkeys form an article of food throughout tropical America. The meat is tough, but keeps longer than any other in that climate. The Indians told Gibbon that "the tail is the most delicate part when the hair is properly singed."]

To all this Edwards, who had kindly accompanied us down the river thus far, added, with frightful gestures, that he purposed to report him to the Quito government. After this bombardment Sandoval was another man, and the two canoes and four Indians we wanted were forthcoming. We had to wait, however, two days for the Indians to prepare their chicha for the journey and to cover the canoes with palm awnings. The price of a canoe for the Maranon is twenty-five varas of lienzo, and the same for each Indian. Unfortunately we had only fifty varas left; but, through the influence of the now good-natured alcalde, we induced the Indians to take the balance in coin. After many delays, we put our baggage into one canoe, and ourselves into the other, and pushed off into the rapid current of the Napo. We had three styles of valediction on leaving. Our Indian quartet, after several last drinks of chicha, bade their friends farewell by clasping hands, one kissing the joined hands, and then the other. Sandoval muttered adios in reply to ours, meaning, no doubt, good riddance, while we shouted a hearty good-bye to Edwards as he pushed his way up stream to continue his lonely but chosen Indian life on the banks of the Yusupino.

The Napo at Santa Rosa runs at least five miles an hour, and we were soon picking our way—now drifting, now paddling—through a labyrinth of islands and snags. The Indians, so accustomed to brutal violence from the hands of the whites, had begged of us, before our departure, that we would not beat them. But shortly after we left, one of them, who was literally filled with chicha, dropped his paddle and tumbled into a heap at the bottom of the canoe, dead drunk. Pratt, our gigantic Mississippi boatman, whom we had engaged at Quito as captain and cook down the river, and who was an awful Goliath in the eyes of the red-skins, seized the fellow and gave him a terrible shaking, the like of which was never seen or heard of in all Napo. At once the liquor left the muddled brain of the astonished culprit, and, taking his paddle, he became from that hour the best of the crew. This was the only case of discipline on the voyage. Always obsequious, they obeyed us with fear and trembling. None of them could speak Spanish, so we had provided ourselves with a vocabulary of Quichua. But some English words, like the imperative paddle! were more effective than the tongue of the Incas. Indeed, when we mixed up our Quichua with a little Anglo-Saxon, they evidently thought the latter was a terrible anathema, for they sprang to their places without delay.

In seven hours we arrived at Suno, a collection of half a dozen palm booths, five feet high, the miserable owners of which do a little fishing and gold-washing. They gave us possession of their largest hut, in which they had been roasting a sea-cow, and the stench was intolerable. Nevertheless, one of our number bravely threw down his blanket within, and went to sleep; two swung their hammocks between the trees, and the rest slept in the canoe. Here, for the first time since leaving Guayaquil, we were tormented by musquitoes. Bats were also quite numerous, but none of them were blood-thirsty; and we may add that nowhere in South America were we troubled by those diabolical imps of imaginative travelers, the leaf-nosed species. So far as our experience goes, we can say, with Bates, that the vampire, so common on the Amazon, is the most harmless of all bats. It has, however, a most hideous physiognomy. A full-grown specimen will measure twenty-eight inches in expanse of wing. Bates found two species on the Amazon—one black, the other of a ruddy line, and both fruit-eaters.

The nocturnal music of these forests is made by crickets and tree-toads. The voice of the latter sounds like the cracking of wood. Occasionally frogs, owls, and goat-suckers croak, hoot, and wail. Between midnight and 3 A.M. almost perfect silence reigns. At early dawn the animal creation awakes with a scream. Pre-eminent are the discordant cries of monkeys and macaws. As the sun rises higher, one musician after another seeks the forest shade, and the morning concert ends at noon. In the heat of the day there is an all-pervading rustling sound, caused by the fluttering of myriad insects and the gliding of lizards and snakes. At sunset parrots and monkeys resume their chatter for a season, and then give way to the noiseless flight of innumerable bats chasing the hawk-moth and beetle. There is scarcely a sound in a tropical forest which is joyous and cheering. The birds are usually silent; those that have voices utter a plaintive song, or hoarse, shrill cry. Our door-yards are far more melodious on a May morning. The most common birds on the Napo are macaws, parrots, toucans, and ciganas. The parrots, like the majority in South America, are of the green type. The toucan, peculiar to the New World, and distinguished by its enormous bill, is a quarrelsome, imperious bird. It is clumsy in flight, but nimble in leaping from limb to limb. It hops on the ground like a robin, and makes a shrill yelping—pia-po-o-co. Ecuadorians call it the predicador, or preacher, because it wags its head like a priest, and seems to say, "God gave it you." The feathers of the breast are of most brilliant yellow, orange, and rose colors, and the robes of the royal dames of Europe in the sixteenth century were trimmed with them. The cigana or "gypsy" (in Peru called "chansu") resembles a pheasant. The flesh has a musky odor, and it is for this reason, perhaps, that they exist in such numbers throughout the country. The Indians never eat them. In no country as in the Amazonian Valley is there such a variety of insects; nowhere do we find species of larger size or greater beauty. It is the richest locality for butterflies; Bates found twelve hundred species in Brazil alone, or three times as many as in all Europe. The splendid metallic-blue, and the yellow and transparent-winged, are very abundant on the Napo; some rise high in the air; others, living in societies, look like fluttering clouds. Moths are comparatively rare. The most conspicuous beetle on the river is a magnificent green species (Chrysophora chrysochlora), always found arboreal, like the majority of tropical coleopters; they look like emerald gems clinging to the branches. There are two kinds of bees, the black and yellow, which the Napos name respectively cushillo mishke (monkey honey) and sara mishke (corn honey). It is singular these Indians have no term for bees, but call them honey, and distinguish them by their color. The black species is said to make the most honey, and the yellow the best. The quadrupeds of the Oriente are few and far between in the dry season. Not a sloth nor armadillo did we see. But when the rains descend the wilderness is a menagerie of tigers and tapirs, pumas and bears, while a host of reptiles, led by the gigantic boa, creep forth from their hiding-places. The most ferocious carnivores are found in the mountains, and the most venomous serpents haunt the lowlands. Darwin says that we ought not to expect any closer similarity between the organic beings on the opposite sides of the Andes than on the opposite shores of the ocean. We will remark that we obtained a peccari, a number of birds not accustomed to high flights, and five reptilian species, on the Pacific slope, identical with species found on the Napo.

Breakfasting on fried yucas, roasted plantains, fish, and guayusa, we set sail, arriving at Coca at 2 P.M. This little village, the last we shall see till we come within sight of the Amazon, is beautifully located on the right bank, twenty-five feet above the river, and opposite the confluence of the Rio Coca. Though founded twenty years ago, it contains only five or six bamboo huts, a government-house, church, alcalde's residence, and a trapiche for the manufacture of aguardiente and sirup from the cane.[125] The alcalde was a worthless blanco, who spent most of his time swinging in a hammock slung between the posts of his veranda, and playing with a tame parrot when not drunk or asleep. This spot is memorable in history. Pizarro having reached it from Quito by way of Baeza and the Coca, halted and built a raft or canoe (Prescott says a brig), in which Orellana was sent down the river to reconnoitre, but who never returned. Up to this point the Napo has an easterly course; but after receiving the Coca, it turns to the southeast. We remained here two days to construct a more comfortable craft for our voyage to the Amazon, a distance of at least five hundred miles. The canoe is the only means of navigation known to the Indians. But the idea of spending fifteen days cooped, cribbed, and cramped in a narrow canoe, exposed to a tropical sun and furious rains, was intolerable.



[Footnote 125: The trapiche or sugar-mill of the Andes is a rude affair. The cane is pressed between cogged wooden cylinders worked by bullocks, and the juice is received in troughs made of hollowed logs.]

Our Santa Rosa canoes were about thirty feet long. These were placed about five feet apart and parallel, and then firmly secured by bamboo joists. Over these we spread a flooring of split bamboo, and planted four stout chonta sticks to support a palm-thatched roof. A rudder (a novel idea to our red-skinned companions), and a box of sand in the stern of one of the boats for a fire-place, completed our rig. The alcalde, with a hiccough, declared we would be forever going down the river in such a huge craft, and the Indians smiled ominously. But when our gallant ship left Coca obediently to the helm, and at the rate of six miles an hour when paddles and current worked together, they shouted "bueno!" Our trunks and provision-cans were arranged along the two sides of the platform, so that we had abundance of from for exercise by day and for sleeping under musquito-tents at night. A little canoe, which we bought of the alcalde, floated alongside for a tender, and was very serviceable in hunting, gathering fuel, etc. In the "forecastle"—the bows of the large canoes which projected beyond our cabin—sat three Indians to paddle. The fourth, who was the governor of Santa Rosa, we honored with the post of steersman; and he was always to be seen on the poop behind the kitchen, standing bolt upright, on the alert and on the lookout. On approaching any human habitation, the Indians blew horns to indicate that they came as friends. These horns must have come from Brazil, as there are no bovines on the Napo. Whenever they enter an unknown lagune they blow their horns also to charm the yacu-mama, or mother-of-waters, as they call the imaginary serpent.

At different points down the river they deposited pots of chicha for use on their return. The mass breeds worms so rapidly, however, as Edwards informed us, that after the lapse of a month or two it is a jumble of yuca scraps and writhing articulates. But the owner of the heap coolly separates the animal from the vegetable, adds a little water, and drinks his chicha without ceremony. During leisure hours the Indians busied themselves plaiting palm leaves into ornaments for their arms and heads. Not a note did they whistle or sing. Yet they were always in good humor, and during the whole voyage we did not see the slightest approach to a quarrel. At no time did we have the least fear of treachery or violence.

The Napos are not savages. Their goodness, however, as Bates says of the Cucama tribe, consists more in the absence of active bad qualities than in the possession of good ones. Of an apathetic temperament and dull imagination, we could not stir them into admiration or enthusiasm by any scientific wonder; the utmost manifestation of surprise was a cluck with the tongue.[126] Upon presenting the governor with a vest, he immediately cut off the buttons, and, dividing the cloth into four parts, shared it with his fellows.[127] When it rained they invariably took off their ponchos, but in all our intercourse with these wild men we never noticed the slightest breach of modesty. They strictly maintained a decent arrangement of such apparel as they possessed. A canoe containing a young Indian, his bride, and our governor's wife and babe, accompanied us down to the Maranon. They were going after a load of salt for Sandoval. The girl was a graceful paddler, and had some well-founded pretensions to beauty. Her coarse, black hair was simply combed back, not braided into plaits as commonly done by the Andean women. All, both male and female, painted their faces with achote to keep off the sand-flies.



[Footnote 126: Bates says the Mundurucus express surprise by making a clicking sound with their teeth, and Darwin observes that the Fuegians have the habit of making a chuckling noise when pleased.]

[Footnote 127: The like perfect equality exists among the Fuegian tribes. "A piece of cloth given to one is torn into shreds and distributed, and no one individual becomes richer than another."—Darwin.]

Pratt managed the helm (the governor could not work the Yankee notion) and the kitchen. At Santa Rosa we had added to our Quito stock of provisions some manati-lard (bottled up in a joint of a bamboo) and sirup, and at Coca we took in three fowls, a bag of rice, and a bunch of bananas. So we fared sumptuously every day. We left Coca on Thanksgiving Day, November 28th, and to imitate our distant friends, we sacrificed an extra meal—fricasseed chicken, jerked beef, boiled yucas, bananas, oranges, lemonade, and guayusa. Favored by a powerful current and the rhythmic paddling of our Santa Rosans, we made this day sixty miles; but our average daily run was fifty miles. The winds (doubtless the trades) were almost unchangeably from the east; but an occasional puff would come from the northwest, when we relieved our paddlers by hoisting a blanket for a sail. Six o'clock was our usual hour of departure, and ten or twelve hours our traveling time, always tying up at a plaia or island, of which there are hosts in the Napo, but never to the main land, for fear of unfriendly Indians and the still more unwelcome tiger. Our crew encamped at a respectful though hailing distance.

On the second day from Coca we were caught in a squall, and to save our roof we ran ashore. Nearly every afternoon we were treated to a shower, accompanied by a strong wind, but seldom by thunder and lightning, though at Coca we had a brilliant thunder-storm at night. They always came after a uniform fashion and at a regular hour, so that we learned when to expect them. About noon the eastern horizon would become suddenly black, and when this had spread to the zenith we heard the rush of a mighty wind sweeping through the forest, and the crash of falling trees, and then down fell the deluge. The Indians have a saying that "the path of the sun is the path of the storm." These storm-clouds moved rapidly, for in half an hour all was quiet on the Napo. At Quito, two hundred miles west, the usual afternoon shower occurs two hours later. To-day we enjoyed our last glimpse of the Andes. Far away across the great forest we had traversed we could see the beautiful cone of Cotopaxi and the flat top of Cayambi standing out in proud pre-eminence. Long will it be ere we forget this farewell view of the magnificent Cordillera.



CHAPTER XV.

Sea-Cows and Turtles' Eggs.—The Forest.—Peccaries.—Indian Tribes on the Lower Napo.—Anacondas and Howling Monkeys.—Insect Pests.—Battle with Ants.—Barometric Anomaly.—First View of the Amazon,—Pebas.

The thirtieth of November was an exciting day on the monotonous Napo. We fell in with numerous sea-cows sporting in the middle of the stream. They were greatly disturbed by the sight of our huge craft, and, lifting their ugly heads high out of the water, gave a peculiar snort, as if in defiance, but always dived out of sight when fired upon. The sea-cow is called vaca marina by the Spaniards, peixe boy by the Brazilians, and manati in the West Indies. It has no bovine feature except in its upper lip. The head and skin remind one of a large seal. In many respects it may be likened to a hippopotamus without tusks or legs. It has a semicircular flat tail, and behind the head are two oval fins, beneath which are the breasts, which yield a white milk. The flesh resembles pork, with a disagreeable, fishy flavor.

To-day we anchored at several plaias to hunt turtles' eggs. Our Indians were very expert in finding the nests. Guided approximately by the tracks of the tortugas, as the turtles are called, they thrust a stick into the sand, and wherever it went down easily they immediately commenced digging with their hands, and invariably "struck" eggs. In four nests, whose contents we counted, there were one hundred and thirty-two, one hundred and fourteen, one hundred and twelve, and ninety-seven; but we have heard of one hundred and sixty eggs in a single nest. The turtles lay in the night, and in pits about two feet deep, which they excavate with their broad, webbed paws. The eggs are about an inch and a half in diameter, having a thin, leathery shell, a very oily yolk, and a white which does not coagulate. The Indians ate them uncooked. We used them chiefly in making corn griddles.

Here, as throughout its whole course, the Napo runs between two walls of evergreen verdure. On either hand are low clay banks (no rocks are visible), and from these the forest rises to a uniform height of seventy or eighty feet. It has a more cheerful aspect than the sombre, silent wilderness of Baeza. Old aristocrats of the woods are overrun by a gay democracy of creepers and climbers, which interlace the entire forest, and, descending to take root again, appear like the shrouds and stays of a line-of-battle ship. Monkeys gambol on this wild rigging, and mingle their chatter with the screams of the parrot. Trees as lofty as our oaks are covered with flowers as beautiful as our lilies. Here are orchids of softest tints;[128] flowering ferns, fifty feet high; the graceful bamboo and wild banana; while high over all countless species of palm wave their nodding plumes. Art could not arrange these beautiful forms so harmoniously as nature has done.

[Footnote 128: Some orchid is in flower all the year round. The finest species is the odontoglossum, having long, chocolate-colored petals, margined with yellow. "Such is their number and variety (wrote Humboldt) that the entire life of a painter would be too short to delineate all the magnificent Orchideae which adorn the recesses of the deep valleys of the Peruvian Andes." For many curious facts respecting the structure of these flowers, see Darwin's Fertilization of Orchids.]



The tropics, moreover, are strangers to the uniformity of association seen in temperate climes. We have so many social plants that we speak of a forest of oaks, and pines, and birches; but there variety is the law. Individuals of the same species are seldom seen growing together. Every tree is surrounded by strangers that seemingly prefer its room to its company; and, such is the struggle for possession of the soil, it is difficult to tell to which stem the different leaves and flowers belong. The peculiar charm of a tropical forest is increased by the mystery of its impenetrable thicket. Within that dense, matted shrubbery, and behind that phalanx of trees, the imagination of the traveler sees all manner of four-footed beasts and creeping things. Tropical vegetation is of fresher verdure, more luxuriant and succulent, and adorned with larger and more shining leaves than the vegetation of the north. The leaves are not shed periodically—a character common, not only to the equator, but also to the whole southern hemisphere. Yet there is a variety of tints, though not autumnal. The leaves put on their best attire while budding instead of falling—passing, as they come to maturity, through different shades of red, brown, and green. The majority of tropical trees bear small flowers. The most conspicuous trees are the palms, to which the prize of beauty has been given by the concurrent voice of all ages. The earliest civilization of mankind belonged to countries bordering on the region of palms. South America, the continent of mingled heat and moisture, excels the rest of the world in the number and perfection of her palms. They are mostly of the feathery and fan-like species; the latter are inferior in rank to the former. The peculiarly majestic character of the palm is given not only by their lofty stems, but also in a very high degree by the form and arrangement of their leaves. How diverse, yet equally graceful, are the aspiring branches of the jagua and the drooping foliage of the cocoa, the shuttlecock-shaped crowns of the ubussu and the plumes of the jupati, forty feet in length. The inflorescence always springs from the top of the trunk, and the male flowers are generally yellowish. Unlike the oak, all species of which have similar fruit, there is a vast difference in the fruits of the palm: compare the triangular cocoa-nut, the peach-like date, and grape-like assai. The silk-cotton tree is the rival of the palm in dignity; it has a white bark and a lofty flat crown. Among the loveliest children of Flora we must include the mimosa, with its delicately pinnated foliage, so endowed with sensibility that it seems to have stepped out of the bounds of vegetable life. The bamboo, the king of grasses, forms a distinctive feature in the landscape of the Napo, frequently rising eighty feet in length, though not in height, for the fronds curve downward. Fancy the airy grace of our meadow grasses united with the lordly growth of the poplar, and you have a faint idea of bamboo beauty.

The first day of winter (how strangely that sounds under a vertical sun!) was Sunday; but it was folly to attempt to rest where punkies were as thick as atoms, so we floated on. It was only by keeping in mid-river and moving rapidly enough to create a breeze through our cabin, that life was made tolerable. A little after noon we were again obliged to tie up for a storm. Not a human being nor a habitation have we seen since leaving Coca; and to-day nothing is visible but the river, with its islands, and plains, and the green palisades—the edges of the boundless forest. Not a hill over one hundred feet high are we destined to see till we reach Obidos, fifteen hundred miles eastward. Were it not for the wealth of vegetation—all new to trans-tropical eyes—and the concerts of monkeys and macaws, oppressively lonely would be the sail down the Napo between its uninhabited shores. But we believe the day, though distant, will come when its banks will be busy with life. Toward evening three or four canoes pulled out from the shore and came alongside. They were filled with the lowest class of Indians we have seen in South America. The women were nearly nude; the man (there was only one) had on a sleeveless frock reaching to the knees, made from the bark of a tree called llanchama. All were destitute of eyebrows; their hair was parted in the middle, and their teeth and lips were dyed black. They had rude pottery, peccari meat, and wooden lances to sell. Like all the Napo Indians, they had a weakness for beads, and they wore necklaces of tiger and monkey teeth. They were stupid rather than brutal, and probably belonged to a degraded tribe of the great Zaparo family. With Darwin, "one's mind hurries back over past centuries, and then asks, could our progenitors have been men like these?—men whose very signs and expressions are less intelligible to us than those of the domesticated animals; men who do not possess the instinct of those animals, nor yet appear to boast of human reason, or, at least, of arts consequent on that reason. I do not believe it is possible to describe or paint the difference between savage and civilized man. It is the difference between a wild and tame animal; and part of the interest in beholding a savage is the same which would lead every one to desire to see the lion in his desert, the tiger tearing his prey in the jungle, or the rhinoceros wandering over the wild plains of Africa."