Pr. Vernazzi del.Wagner & McGuigan's Lith. Phila.GIVARO.Pl. 13.
Pr. Vernazzi del.Wagner & McGuigan's Lith. Phila.GIVARO.Pl. 13.
Pr. Vernazzi del.
Wagner & McGuigan's Lith. Phila.
GIVARO.Pl. 13.
From its mountains you may dig silver, iron, coal, copper, quicksilver, zinc, and tin; from the sands of its tributaries you may wash gold, diamonds, and precious stones; from its forests you may gather drugs of virtues the most rare, spices of aroma the most exquisite, gums and resins of the most varied and useful properties, dyes of hues the most brilliant, with cabinet and building-woods of the finest polish and most enduring texture.
Its climate is an everlasting summer, and its harvest perennial. I translate from a book of travels in these countries, by Count Castelnau, (received since my return to the United States,) an account of the capacities of some of the southern portions of this vast water-shed:
"The productions of the country are exceedingly various. The sugar-cane, of which the crop is gathered at the end of eight months from the time of planting, forms the chief source of wealth of the province ofCercado.
"Coffee is cultivated also with success in this province, and in that ofChiquitosyields its fruit two years after having been planted, and requires scarcely any attention. Cocoa, recently introduced into these two provinces, gives its fruit at the end of three or four years at most. The tamarind, which thrives in the same localities, produces its harvest in five years. Cotton gives annual crops; there are two varieties—the one white, the other yellow. Tobacco grows, so to speak, without cultivation in the province ofValle Grande, where it forms the principal article of commerce. Indigo, of which there are three cultivated kinds and one wild, is equally abundant. Maize yields at the end of three months all the year round; it is also cultivated in the province of Cercado. The cassave produces in eight months after planting; there are two kinds of it—one sweet, and the other bitter; the first can replace the potato, and even bread; the second is only good for starch. There is an enormous amount of kinds or varieties of bananas, which produce in the year from seed; they are specially cultivated in the province of Cercado. Two kinds of rice—one white, the other colored—are cultivated in the two provinces of Cercado and Chiquitos. They produce every five or six months; they say it is found wild in the region of Chiquitos.
"The grape, which grows well everywhere, and especially in the province ofCordilleras, where it was cultivated in the Missions up to the time of the Independence, is nevertheless made no article of profit. It will some day, perhaps, form one of the principal sources of wealth of this country. Wheat, barley, and the potato might be cultivated with advantage in the provinces of Chiquitos and Cordilleras; but till now results have been obtained only in that of Valle Grande. Thecultivation of cocoa has commenced in the province of Cercado, and it is also found in a wild state, as well as the Peruvian bark, on the mountains ofSamaripata. As we have already said, fruits abound in this region. They cultivate there principally oranges, lemons, citrons, figs, papaws, pomegranates, melons, watermelons, chirimoyas, (which the Brazilians callfruto de conde,) pine apples, &c. The last of these fruits grow wild, and in great abundance, in the woods of Chiquitos. We met it, particularly the evening of our arrival, at Santa Ana. Its taste is excellent; but it leaves in the mouth such a burning sensation that I bitterly repented having tasted it. They cultivate in sufficient abundance, in the province, jalap, Peruvian bark, sarsaparilla, vanilla, rocou, copahu, ipecacuanha, caoutchouc, copal, &c. Woods for dyeing, cabinet making, and building, abound; and the people of the country collect carefully a multitude of gums, roots, and barks, to which they attribute medicinal virtues the most varied. In many points in the departments, and especially in the provinces of Valle Grande and Cordilleras, iron is found, and traces of quicksilver. Gold is found in the province of Cercado, near the village ofSan Xavier. The Jesuits wrought mines of silver in the mountains ofColchis. Don Sebastian Rancas, while governor of Chiquitos, announced to the government that diamonds, of very fine water, had been found in the streams in the environs ofSanto Corazon."
September 4.—The shores of the river are low, but abrupt. The lower strata next to the water's edge are of sand, hardening into rock from the superincumbent pressure of the soil with its great trees. There were a great many porpoises sporting in the river. At 3 p. m. we passed the narrow arm of the river that runs byUrarinas, a small village situated on the left bank. The channel inside the island seemed nearly dry. Ijurra, however, passed through it in a small canoe, and bought some fowls and a small monkey at the pueblo. The channel of the river runs near the right bank. Population of Urarinas, eighty.
September 5.—Thepatos reales, a large and beautiful species of duck with which the river abounds, are now breeding. We saw numbers of pairs conducting their broods over the water. Though the young ones could not fly, they could dive so long and fast that we could not catch them. I brought home a pair of these ducks, and find that they answer exactly to the description of the Egyptian goose. They have small horns on their wings.
We met canoes of Tarapoto from the Ucayali with salt fish; also one belonging to Urarinas, returning from carrying sarsaparilla toNauta.
September 6.—Passed the mouth of the small riverAiricoon the left. One of our Indians says that the ascent of this river for a week brings the traveller to a lake, and for another week, to mountains.
We have had quite heavy squalls of wind and rain every day since entering the Amazon. The canoes are so low that they cannot ride the waves of mid-river, and are compelled to haul in for the land, and wait for the storm to pass. We saw alligators to-day, for the first time.
September 7.—Arrived atParinari. This is an Indian village of three hundred and thirty inhabitants, situated on a hill on the right bank of the river. It is about twenty feet above the present level of the river, which rises, in the full, to within three feet of the houses. The people live principally by fishing, and gathering sarsaparilla to sell at Nauta. The lieutenant governor gave us some spirits made of plantains. It was vile stuff; very strong; and is said to be unwholesome.
September 8.—Saw Ronsocos; and the Fiscales killed six howling monkeys with their pucunas. Passed the mouth ofTigre Yacuon the left. It is seventy yards broad, and looks deep and free from obstruction. Its waters are much clearer than those of the Amazon. It is navigable for canoes a long way up; and a considerable quantity of sarsaparilla is gathered on its banks, though inhabited by savages, who are said to be warlike and dangerous. We camped at night on an island near the middle of the river. A narrow island lay between us andSan Regis, a small pueblo on the left bank, whence we could hear the sound of music and merry-making all night. It has two hundred and ten inhabitants.
The Fiscales, cooking their big monkeys over a large fire on the beach, presented a savage and most picturesque night scene. They looked more like devils roasting human beings than like servants of the church.
September 9.—Passed a channel calledPucati, which is a small mouth of the Ucayali. It is now nearly dry. In the rainy season it is passable for canoes; but spreads out so much in its course (forming small lakes) that it leaves few places to kindle a fire on, or sleep; and is, for this reason, little used. It takes three days to come through it from the Ucayali to the Amazon; and six to traverse it the other way. Soon after leaving this, we passed another small channel, said to communicate with a large lake—a large one probably in the full, when this whole country between the Ucayali, Amazon, and channel of Pucati, is nearly overflowed. We arrived at Nauta at noon, having travelled two hundred and ten miles from the mouth of the Huallaga.
We called on the governor general of the Missions of Mainas, Don José Maria Arebalo, who received us with some formality, and gave us lodgings in one of the houses of the village—I suspect, turning out the inhabitants for that purpose. My companion, Ijurra, was not sure of a cordial reception; for, when sub-prefect of the province, he had caused Arebalo to be arrested and carried prisoner from Balza Puerto to Moyobamba. But our friend was much too magnanimous to remember old feuds, and he and Ijurra soon became boon companions.
Nauta is a fishing village of one thousand inhabitants, mostly Indians of theCocamatribe, which is distinct from that of the Cocamillas of Laguna. It has a few white residents engaged in trading with the Indians for salt fish, wax, and sarsaparilla, which are obtained from the Ucayali. Don Bernardino Cauper, an old Portuguese, does most of the business of the place. He sends parties of Indians to fish or gather sarsaparilla upon the Napo and Ucuyali; and he has two or three boats (called in this part of the country garreteas) trading down the river as far as Egas. He supplies all the country above with foreign articles from Brazil, and receives consignments from the upper country, which he sends to Egas.
Don Bernardino lives in a sort of comfort. He has plenty of meat, (calling turtle, salt fish, and fowls meat,) with farinha from below, and beans and onions from his little garden. There is good tobacco from above to smoke, and wholesome, though fiery, Lisbon wine to drink. I have been frequently struck during my journey with the comparative value of things. The richest man of a village of one thousand inhabitants, in the United States, would think Bernardino's table poorly supplied, and would turn up his nose at a grass hammock slung between two hooks in the shop for a bed-place. Yet these things were regal luxuries to us; and, doubtless, being the best that are to be had, Don Bernardino is perfectly contented, and desires nothing better.
The old gentleman is very pious. The Cura of Pebas was at this time in Nauta, attending to the repairs of the church; and we celebrated a nine-days' service (Novena) in honor of our Lady of Mercy, the patroness of the arms of Peru. The expenses of the service (being a fee for the padre and the lighting of the church with wax) were borne by individuals. The padre gave the first day; then Senhor Cauper; then his wife, his wife's sister, his son, his pretty Brazilian niece, Donna Candida; then came Arebalo; then Ijurra and I; the priest winding up on Sunday. But my old friend was not contented with this; and when I shoved off on Monday for the Ucayali, I left him engaged in another church service, setting off rockets, and firing, fromtime to time, an old blunderbuss, loaded to the muzzle, in honor of a miracle that had happened in Rimini, in Italy, some year and a half ago, of which we had just received intelligence.
The governor general gave me some statistics, from which it appears that the province of Mainas is divided into the province proper, (of which the capital is Moyobamba,) the upper and lower Missions, and the Conversions of the Ucayali.
The upper Mission has four districts—Balza Puerto, Xeberos, Laguna, and Andoas; containing seventeen villages, and nine thousand nine hundred and eleven inhabitants. The lower Mission has two districts—Nauta and Loreto, with seventeen villages, and three thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine inhabitants. The Conversions of the Ucayali are confined to the villages of Sarayacu, Tierra Blanca, and Sta. Catalina, and number one thousand three hundred and fifty inhabitants, mostly converts of the Panos tribe. They are governed by priests of the College of Ocopa, who are under the spiritual direction of its guardian; but hold their temporal authority under the prefect of the department. Arebalo estimates the number of whites in the Missions and Conversions—counting men, women, and children—at four hundred and seven.
Both Missions are under the authority of a governor general, who holds his commission from the sub-prefect of the province. Each district has its governor, and each town its lieutenant governor. The other authorities of a town are curacas, captains, lieutenants, adjutants, ensigns, sergeants, alcaldes, and constables. (All these are Indians.) The office of curaca is hereditary. The right of succession is sometimes interfered with by the white governor; but this always gives dissatisfaction, and is occasionally (added to other grievances) the cause of rebellion and riot. The savages treat their curaca with great respect, and submit to corporal punishment at his mandate.
I know of no legal establishment in the Missions—the law proceeding out of the mouths of the governors. Indians are punished by flogging or confinement in the stocks; whites are sometimes imprisoned; but if their offence is of a grave nature, they are sent to be tried and judged by the courts of the capital.
Arebalo estimates the value of the commerce of the Missions with Brazil at twenty thousand dollars annually; and that with the Pacific coast, through Chachapoyas and Truxillo, at twenty thousand more. The vegetable productions of the Missions do not equal the value of the imports; but the people get some money from the coast for their manufactures of coarse cotton and straw-hats; and a little gold is occasionally obtained from the sands of the Napo and Pastaza.
The Missions send to Chachapoyas and Truxillo tobacco, salt fish, straw-hats, coarse cotton cloths, wax, incense for the churches, balsam copaiba, and vanilla, and receive, in return, cattle, horses, goods of Europe, and a little money. The Brazilians bring up heavy articles—such as I described as composing the cargo of the traders we met at Laguna; and take back straw-hats, hammocks of the Indians, sarsaparilla, and money. The value of the sarsaparilla of the Missions is estimated at two thousand dollars at the place of production, and six thousand at its place of sale in Brazil; the value of the wax at the same at the place of production; and at four thousand dollars at place of sale. The greatest profit, however, is made on the fish, of which thirty thousand pieces are taken annually in the Ucayali and Amazon. It costs there about three cents the piece; and is worth in Tarapoto, Lamas, and other places of the province, about twelve and a half cents the piece.
Estimate of the expenses and returns of a canoe-load of salt-fish from Nauta to Balza Puerto.
The return-cargo also yields a profit: so that my friend, the governor, who by virtue of his office can get as many men to take fish for him as he wants, will probably return to civilized parts in a few years with a snug little sum in his pocket. Old Cauper is rich, and the priest in comfortable circumstances.
Estimate of expenses and returns of an expedition from Nauta to the Ucayali for the collection of sarsaparilla. (The expedition will occupy four months of time.)
The people engaged in this occupation make, however, more profit, by cheating the Indians in every possible mode. They also own the garreteas; and, by management, support their peons for less than three cents per day.
This is an estimate made up from information given by Arebalo. Hacket makes a much better business of it. He says, "Eighty working hours above Sarayacu, on the Ucayali, is the mouth of the riverAguaytia, on the banks of which grows sarsaparilla in sufficient quantity not only to enrich the province of Mainas, but all the department of Amazonas. Its cost is eight varas of tocuyo the hundred pounds, undertaking the work of gathering it with formality—that is to say, employing one hundred persons under the direction of a man of talent, and paying them a monthly salary of twenty-four varas of tocuyo each; quadruple the price that is generally paid in Mainas.
"It sells in Nauta, Peruate, and Loreto for nine dollars the hundred pounds, gold or silver coin; in Tabatinga, (frontier of Brazil,) for ten dollars and fifty cents; in Pará, for twenty-five dollars; and in Europe, for from forty to sixty dollars, in times of greatest abundance."
Sarsaparilla is a vine of sufficient size to shoot up fifteen or twenty feet from the root without support. It then embraces the surrounding trees, and spreads to a great distance. The main root sends out many tendrils, generally about two lines in diameter, and five feet long. These are gathered and tied up in large bundles of about a Portuguese arroba, or thirty-two pounds of weight. The main root, ormadre, should not be disturbed; but the Indians are little careful in this matter, and frequently cut it off, by which much sarsaparilla is destroyed. The digging up of the small roots out of the wet and marshy soil is a laborious and unhealthy occupation.
It is to be found on the banks of almost every tributary of the great streams of the Montaña; but a great many of these are not worked, on account of the savages living on their banks, who frequently attack the parties that come to gather it. On the "Pangoa" are theCampas; on the "Pachitea," the "Aguaytia," and the "Pisque," are the "Cashibos;" and the whole southern border of the Amazon, from the mouth of the Ucayali to that of theYavari, is inhabited by the "Mayorunas;" all savages, and averse to intercourse with the white man. The same is the case on the "Tigreyacu," where there is said to be much sarsaparilla. Padre Calvo, the president of the Missions at Sarayacu, told me that, although he has the exclusive right, by order of the prefect, of collecting all the sarsaparilla on the Ucayali and its tributaries, he could not, if I were willing to pay any price, supply me with more than three hundred arrobas per annum, on account of the difficulty of getting laborers who are willing to brave the attacks of the savages.
I have estimated the annual cost of running a small steamer between Loreto, the frontier port of Peru and Chasuta, a distance of eight hundred miles, entirely within the Peruvian territory, at twenty thousand dollars, including the establishment of blacksmiths' and carpenters' shops at Nauta for her repairs. According to the estimate of Arebalo, (and I judge that he is very nearly correct,) the value of the imports and exports to and from Brazil is twenty thousand dollars annually. I have no doubt that the appearance of a steamer in these waters would at once double the value; for it would, in the first place, convert the thousand men who are now employed in the fetching and carrying of the articles of trade into producers, and would give a great impulse to trade by facilitating it. A loaded canoe takes eighty days to ascend these eight hundred miles. A steamer will do it in twelve, giving ample time to take in wood, to land and receive cargo at the various villages on the river, and to lay by at night. When the river becomes better known she can run for a large part of the night, and thus shorten her timenearly one-half. Men shrink at the eighty days in a canoe, when they will jump at the twelve in a steamer.
The steamer will also increase commerce and trade by creating artificial wants; men will travel who did not travel before; articles of luxury—such as Yankee clocks, cheap musical instruments, &c.—will be introduced, and the Indians will work to obtain them; and, in short, when the wonders that the steamboat and railroad have accomplished are taken into consideration, I shall not be thought rash in predicting that in one year from the time of the appearance of the steamer, Arebalo's twenty thousand dollars will be made forty thousand.
Thus we shall have twenty thousand dollars' worth of goods going up from Loreto to Chasuta, paying at least one hundred per cent.; and twenty thousand dollars going down, paying another hundred per cent.; giving to the steamboat company (who would monopolize the trade) forty thousand dollars a year, against twenty thousand dollars of expenses.
There would be no difficulty in getting a supply of fuel. My Peruvian steamer would have to make her way slowly up, for the first time, by collecting and cutting up the abundant drift-wood on the islands; but she could readily contract with the governors of the thirty-six villages between Pará and Chasuta for a regular supply. The Brazilian government has an organized and enlisted corps of laborers, under the orders of the military commandants, and I should suppose would be willing to employ them in furnishing wood, on account of the great advantages to be derived from the increase of trade. The Indians of the Peruvian villages are entirely obedient to their governors; and a sufficient number of them may always be had, at wages of twelve and a half cents per day, with about three cents more for their maintenance. This amount of wages may be reduced one-half by paying them in articles for their consumption, bought at Pará or brought from the United States.
The only difficulty that I have in my calculations is that I know there are not forty thousand dollars in the whole province; its productions must find their way to the Pacific, on the one hand, and to the Atlantic, on the other, before they can be converted into money. My steamer, therefore, to be enabled to buy and sell, must communicate at Loreto with a larger steamer, plying between that place and Barra, at the mouth of the Rio Negro, a distance of eight hundred and forty miles; and this with another still larger, between Barra and Pará, a distance of a thousand miles.
These three steamers (however much I may be out of my calculationsregarding the one confined to the Peruvian territory) could not fail to enrich their owners; for they would entirely monopolize the trade of the river, which is fairly measured by the imports and exports of Pará, which amounted in 1851 to two millions of dollars.
These two millions are now brought down to Pará, and carried away from Pará, (with the exception of what is consumed in the city,) by clumsy, inefficient river-craft, which would vanish from the main stream at the first triumphant whistle of the engine. These would, however, until the profits justified the putting on of more steamers, find ample employment in bringing down and depositing upon the banks of the main stream the productions of the great tributaries.
I can imagine the waking-up of the people on the event of the establishment of steamboat navigation on the Amazon. I fancy I can hear the crash of the forest falling to make room for the cultivation of cotton, cocoa, rice, and sugar, and the sharp shriek of the saw, cutting into boards the beautiful and valuable woods of the country; that I can see the gatherers of India-rubber and copaiba redoubling their efforts, to be enabled to purchase the new and convenient things that shall be presented at the door of their huts in the wilderness; and even the wild Indian finding the way from his pathless forest to the steamboat depôt to exchange his collections of vanilla, spices, dyes, drugs, and gums, for the things that would take his fancy—ribbons, beads, bells, mirrors, and gay trinkets.
Brazil and Peru have entered into arrangements, and bound themselves by treaty, to appropriate money towards the establishment of steamboat navigation on the Amazon. This is well. It is doing something towards progress; but it is the progress of a denizen of their own forests—the sloth. Were they to follow the example lately set by the republics of the La Plata, and throw open their rivers to the commerce of the world, then the march of improvement would be commensurate with the importance of the act; and these countries would grow in riches and power with the rapidity of the vegetation of their own most fertile lands.
We, more than any other people, are interested in the opening of this navigation. As has been before stated, the trade of this regionmustpass byourdoors, and mingle and exchange with the products ofourMississippi valley. I am permitted to take extracts bearing upon this subject from a letter of an eminent American citizen residing in Lima to the Superintendent of the National Observatory, whose papers upon the Amazon, its resources and future importance, have attracted the attention, not only of our own people, but that of those who dwell orhave territorial possessions upon this great water-shed; and to whom belongs the honor of originating the mission upon which I have been engaged.
This gentleman in Lima, whose comprehensive mind and ripe judgment had been attracted to the subject by Maury's pen, says to the Lieutenant, under date of July, 1852:
"Since I last wrote to you, I have made the acquaintance of Don ——, a native of Chili, and whom Gibbon saw at Cochabamba, in Bolivia. This is undoubtedly a clever man; but I suspect that he has also come to act as a secret agent of Belzu, the President of Bolivia. However that may be, he pretends that Belzu is favorably disposed towards us, and would grant privileges to a steam navigation company, were application made to him in due form. As I know of no other individual in Bolivia with whom I could communicate on the subject of Amazonian navigation, I did not hesitate to make use of him; for, in my opinion, there is no time to be lost if the United States intend to secure the interior trade of South America for its citizens.
"Don —— declares that the Mamoré is navigable for steamers from a point near Cochabamba to its confluence with the Guaporé or Itenez, and so onward to the junction of the latter with the Beni, forming together the Rio Madeira; that the 'Cachuelas,' or falls of the Madeira, are neither impassable nor formidable, and may be easily ascended by steamers, as there is plenty of water and no rocks. To prove this, he asserts that a Brazilian schooner ascended the Mamoré to Trinidad, and fired a salute at that place, about two years ago. After passing the falls, the river is, of course, navigable to the Amazon. Admitting this statement of Don —— to be true, (and I am inclined to believe it, as the Brazilians constantly ascend the Itenez to Matto Grosso,) there is open navigation from Pará to within a few leagues of Cochabamba, at least two thousand miles; and this is not so incredible when we consider the length of navigation on the Missouri river. The accessibility of the Bolivian rivers will, however, be ascertained with greater certainty after Gibbon has passed through the Cachuelas of the Madeira, as it is to be hoped that he will sound, and otherwise minutely examine, the different rapids of that river, and correct the errors which Don —— says are in the chart made by ——, a copy of which I sent you by Mr. O'Brian for Herndon.
"The account Don —— gives of the products of the country lying on the banks of the Mamoré is very glowing. He says that the richest cocoa and coffee grow almost wild, and that the greatest part of the former is consumed by the monkeys and birds, for the want of meansof transporting it to a market. Sugar-cane of gigantic dimensions is found everywhere, with white and yellow cotton of a staple equal to Sea island. Several kinds of cascarilla grow in abundance, as also sarsaparilla and gums, ornamental and other woods, and honey and wax, in immense quantities. Crossing the Mamoré from Exaltacion to the southwest, you arrive at the river Machuno, which, according to Don ——, is a small 'Pactolus;' and he assures me that the whole country between the Mamoré and the Itenez, from latitude 14° to the north, is a gold district as rich as California.
"My opiniondecidedly is, that the whole country traversed by the rivers issuing from the slope of the Eastern Cordillera, from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in Bolivia, to the mouth of the Ucayali, in Peru, is one immense gold and silver region; gold being found in the flats near the rivers, and silver in the mountains. I will venture to predict that the same region contains diamonds and other precious stones, some of which are probably unknown to the lapidary at present. The silver mines of Carabaya were immensely productive when worked by Salcedo; so much so, that the vice-regal government trumped up an accusation against him, tried him, and ordered his execution, to obtain possession of the mines by confiscation. The attempt failed, as the Indians, who were devoted to Salcedo, refused to give any information to the government respecting the mines; and they have remained unworked up to the present time.
"Gold is known to exist in considerable quantities at Carabaya, and in the Pampa del Sacramento. I have seen specimens from the former place; but gold is the least attraction for emigration to Bolivia; the soil and its products are the source from which the wanderers from foreign lands are to find plenty and happiness. The climate is said to be good, and the Indians, except upon the lower part of the Beni, peaceable and well disposed to the whites. In short, according to Don ——, the east of Bolivia affords the greatest sphere for trade and colonization.
"For myself, I feel full of this vast subject; for I know that within less than one hundred leagues of me is the margin of those great solitudes: replete with riches, and occupying the wild space where millions of the human race might dwell in plenty and happiness; where nature annually wastes more than would support the population of China in comfort; and where the most luxurious fruits and fairest flowers grow and bloom unknown and unnoticed. When I reflect on this, and on the miles of rivers rolling on in silence and neglect, I feel doubly the wantof power and money to accomplish their introduction to the civilized world.
"I think that the energies and influence of all the friends of South American internal navigation and colonization should be directed towards forming a company, with a large capital, and to obtain the aid and support of the Congress of the United States. I know how difficult an undertaking it is to wring an appropriation out of our national legislature, for any purpose; but if the subject could be fairly brought before it, and some of the leading senators and representatives could be excited to take a patriotic interest in it, perhaps something might be done.
"We must, on our side, do all we can, and by dint of perseverance we may succeed at last in accomplishing our object. Should we do so, it will be a proud satisfaction to ourselves; though the public may, and probably will, leave us to exclaim—
"'Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honores!'
"'Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit alter honores!'
"I shall continue working on and writing to you whenever I have anything of the least interest to communicate."
The greatest boon in the wide world of commerce is in the free navigation of the Amazon, its confluents and neighboring streams. The back-bone of South America is in sight of the Pacific. The slopes of the continent look east; they are drained into the Atlantic, and their rich productions, in vast variety and profusion, may be emptied into the commercial lap of that ocean by the most majestic of water-courses.
The time will come when the free navigation of the Amazon and other South American rivers will be regarded by the people of this country as second only in importance to the acquisition of Louisiana.
Having traversed that water-shed from its highest ridge to its very caves and gutters, I find my thoughts and reflections overwhelmed with the immensity of this field for enterprise, commercial prosperity, and human happiness.
I can bear witness to the truth of the sentiment expressed by my friend, Mr. Maury, that the Valley of the Amazon and the Valley of the Mississippi are commercial complements of each other—one supplying what the other lacks in the great commercial round. They are sisters which should not be separated. Had I the honor to be mustered among the statesmen of my country, I would risk political fame and life in the attempt to have the commerce of this noble river thrown open to the world.
Nauta—River Ucayali—Sarayacu—The Missionaries—The Indians of the Ucayali.
Señor Cauper has four or five slaves in his house—blacks, which he brought from Brazil. This is contrary to the law, but it is winked at; and I heard the governor say that he would like much to have a pair. Mr. Cauper said they would be difficult to get, and would cost him five hundred dollars in money. A slave that is a mechanic is worth five hundred dollars in Brazil.
Arebalo gave us specimens of the woods of the country; they are calledaguano,ishpingo,muena,capirono,cedro,palo de cruz, (our lignum-vitæ,) andpalo de sangre—all good, whether for house or ship-building; and some of them very hard, heavy, and beautiful. The palo de sangre is of a rich red color, susceptible of a high polish; and a decoction of its bark is said to be good to stay bloody evacuations. I had no opportunity of testing it, but suspect it is given on the homœopathic principle, that "like cures like," because it is red. I thought the same of the guaco, in the case of the snake-bite.
The temperature of Nauta is agreeable. The lowest thermometer I observed was 71° at 6 a. m., and the highest 89° at 3 p. m. We have had a great deal of cloudy weather and rain since we have been on the Amazon; and it is now near the commencement of the rainy season at this place. No one suffers from heat, though this is probably the hottest season of the year; the air is loaded with moisture; and heavy squalls of wind and rain sweep over the country almost every day. In the dry months—from the last of February to the first of September—a constant and heavy breeze blows, nearly all day, against the stream of the river; the wind, at all seasons, is generally easterly, but is at this time more fitful and liable to interruption; so that sail-boats bound up make, at this season, the longest passages. The river, which is three-fourths of a mile wide opposite Nauta, and has an imposing appearance, has risen four feet between the sixteenth and twenty-fifth of September.
The town is situated on a hill, with the forest well cleared away from around it, and is a healthy place. I saw only two cases of sickness during my stay of two weeks. They were acute cases of disease, to which people are liable everywhere. Both patients died; probably forwant of medical attention. I gave the man who had the dysentery some doses of calomel and opium, (a prescription I had from Dr. Smith, of Lima;) but he died with the last dose. Though solicited, I would have nothing to do with the other case. It was a woman; and I had no confidence in my practice. I could only add my mite to a subscription raised by the whites for the benefit of her orphan children.
The Cocamas of Nauta are great fishermen and boatmen, and I think are bolder than most of the civilized tribes on the river. They make incursions, now and then, into the country of the Mayorunas—savages who inhabit the right banks of the Ucayali and Amazon—fight battles with them, and bring home prisoners, generally children. When travelling in small numbers, or engaged in their ordinary avocations on the river, they studiously avoid the country of their enemies, who retaliate whenever opportunity offers.
These Indians are jealous, and punish conjugal infidelity with severity, and also departure from the laws of chastity on the part of the unmarried female.
Arebalo thinks that the population of the Missions is increasing, and found by the census, taken carefully last year by himself, that the number of women exceeded that of the men by more than one thousand.
A boat came in from above on the eighteenth, and reported the loss of another belonging to Enrique, one of the traders we had met at Laguna. She was loaded with salt and cotton cloth; and, in passing the mouth of Tigre Yacu in the night, struck upon a "sawyer," capsized, and went down. A boy was drowned. Macready would have envied the low, soft, sad tones and eloquent gestures, expressive of pity and horror, with which an Indian told us the disastrous story.
September 20.—We paid twelve rowers and a popero, and set them to work to fit up our boat with decks and coverings. I had purchased this boat from Mr. Cauper for sixty dollars, the price he paid for it when it was new. Most persons on the river held up their hands when I told them what I had paid for it; but I thought it was cheap, especially as I was obliged to have it on any terms. He had it repaired and calked for us.
The boat (called garretea) is thirty feet long, seven wide in its widest part, and three deep. The after-part is decked for about ten feet in length with the bark of a palm-tree, which is stripped from the trunk and flattened out by force. The deck is covered over by small poles, bent in hoop-fashion over it, and well thatched with palm-leaves; making quite a snug little cabin. The pilot stands or sits on this roof to direct and steer, and sleeps upon it at night, to the manifest dangerof rolling off. About twelve feet of the middle of the boat is covered and decked in like manner; but the covering is lower and narrower, giving room for the rowers to sit on each side of it to paddle. Most of the cargo is stowed under the decks, thus leaving a cabin for both Ijurra and myself. There is a space between the two coverings which is not decked over, that gives a chance for bailing the boat when she takes in water; and a sufficient space is left in the bow on which to place a large earthen vessel to make a fire in.
I bought from Senhor Cauper some Portuguese axes, some small fish-hooks, (called by the Indiansmishqui,) and some white beads, which are most coveted by the savages of the Ucayali.
We had several fishing pic-nics with the priest and governor, and altogether a pleasant time at Nauta.
September 25.—Having engaged a servant, a Tarapotino, named Lopez, and embarked our luggage and provisions, I hoisted a small American flag, given me from the frigate Raritan, and got under way for the Ucayali. We started with ten peons, but were joined by two others in a skiff (calledmontaria) next morning. In fifty-five minutes we arrived at the mouth of the Ucayali. It is a beautiful stream, with low, shelving, green banks at its mouth. But I was disappointed in its size; it was not more than half as wide as the Amazon. It is the longest known tributary above Brazil, and is therefore called by some the main trunk of the Amazon. We poled and paddled slowly up the left bank for four and a half miles, and stopped at a bluff where there were one or two huts of Nauta people. Threatening rain, we attempted to sleep in the boat; but our musquito curtains not being properly prepared, we passed a wretched night.
September 26.—Taking advantage of the eddies and still water near the shore, we paddled and poled along at about the rate of a mile and a half per hour. Our men work well. They commence paddling with a strong, slow stroke, of about fifteen or twenty to the minute, and gradually quicken them till they get to be half-second strokes. They keep this up for about half an hour, when, at a shout from the bowman, they toss their paddles in the air, change sides, and commence the slow stroke again. They, however, prefer poling to paddling, and will always make for a beach, where they can use their poles, which they do in a lazy, inefficient manner.
Pr. Vernazzi del.Wagner & McGuigan's Lith. Phila.GIVARA.Pl. 14.
Pr. Vernazzi del.Wagner & McGuigan's Lith. Phila.GIVARA.Pl. 14.
Pr. Vernazzi del.
Wagner & McGuigan's Lith. Phila.
GIVARA.Pl. 14.
The shores of the river to day, on the left bank, are abrupt, and about ten or fifteen feet high. They are of a light, loose earth, that is continually caving in by the action of the current, and carrying trees into the stream. On the other side the shores are low, green, andshelving. I think they are the shores of low, narrow islands. The trees are not very thick, and the country is more open than on the banks of the Huallaga. After breakfast we pulled nearly to the middle of the river, and, anchoring in thirty-three feet water, we found the current, by the log, to be a mile and three-quarters the hour. We passed the mouth of a small stream called Chingana, up which there is a settlement of the Mayorunas. Our men are much afraid of this people, and always sleep on the left bank so long as they are in their country. All the peons on this river have their musquito curtains painted black, so that the Mayorunas may not see them in the night. The mode of attack of these savages is to wait till the travellers have fallen asleep, and then rush upon the musquito nets and plunge in their lances. None of the Indians that I have travelled with seem to have any idea of the propriety of posting a sentinel. At noon the river, which has been from its mouth less than a quarter of a mile wide, spreads out, and is divided by islands. We anchored in twelve feet water, sixty yards from the shore, and slept without musquito netting. It was windy, and these troublesome insects did not come off. Rain nearly all night.
September 27.—Two of our turtles died yesterday, and the Indians are eating them to-day. Ijurra suspects that they killed them by putting tobacco in their mouths, knowing that we would not eat them, and that they consequently would get them. But Ijurra is of a suspicious nature, especially where Indians are concerned, whom he thinks to be the vilest and most worthless of mankind. We found the current to-day to be two miles the hour. A fish about two feet long, and sharp-built, like a dolphin, jumped into the boat. It had two curved and very sharp teeth, like those of a squirrel, or the fangs of a serpent, in the lower jaw. It made us a very good mess. The river to-day is much divided by islands, the passages from one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards wide. When running between the main shore, the river is about a quarter of a mile wide.
September 28.—Passed the outlet of a lake said to be a day distant. There are many lakes on each side of the river, where the Indians fish with barbasco. At this season most of the outlets are dry. Passed two balsas loaded with sarsaparilla, gathered in the river Aguaytia, above Sarayacu. One was in charge of a Brazilian negro, the other of a Portuguese; they were dependants of a trading establishment at Loreto. The crew were Conibos Indians of the Ucayali. They had a floating turtle-pen along, and gave us a turtle. When we stopped to breakfast our people hid their jars, which they had emptied of their masata, to pick up on the return. Banks of the river, as usual, about ten orfifteen feet high. Beaches few and small, running out in ridges; so that at one moment our men could not touch bottom with their long poles, and at the next the boat was aground.
September 29.—We passed a place in the river where there was a beach on each side, and a tree grounded in the middle. On the side which we passed, which was to the right of the tree, we had but four feet water sixty yards from the beach. I suspect the tree was grounded on a sand-flat at the upper end of an island, the lower end of which we had not noticed, and that the channel was on the other side, and close to the right bank of the river. Passed the mouth of the Caño Pucati, which communicates with the Marañon just below San Regis. It is now entirely dry, and appears a mere fissure in the bank between the cane and small trees growing near it. The sand which is heaped up at its entrance, is four feet above the present level of the river.
Stopped and bought some turtle, salt, and saltedcurassows, (a large, black, game bird, nearly the size, and with something the appearance, of a turkey, calledpiuri,) from some San Regis people, who were salting fish, which they had taken in a lake near. Their ranchos were built upon a bluff on the right bank. I could not stay among them for the musquitoes, and had to retreat to the boat. Two large turtles, three salted birds, and half a peck of salt, cost us six strings of small beads.
September 30.—Passed the mouth of an arm of the river, which is said to leave the main river many miles above, and make the large island ofPaynaco. It is navigable for canoes in the wet season; but, on account of its windings, it takes nearly as long to pass it as it does to pass the main river; and it is seldom navigated. We see many cranes andhuananas, (the Egyptian goose before described,) but no animals except flesh colored porpoises, of which there are a great many. Occasionally we hear "cotomonos," or howling monkeys, in the woods. Dull work ascending the river; anchored near low sand islands with abrupt banks, which were continually tumbling into the stream.
October 1.—After daylight we landed and shot at cotomonos. One is not aware of the great height of the trees until he attempts to shoot a monkey or a bird out of the topmost branches. He is then surprised to find that the object is entirely out of reach of his fowling-piece, and that only a rifle will reach it. The trees throughout this country grow with great rapidity, and, being in a light, thin soil, with a substratum of sand, the roots are superficial, and the trees are continually falling down. Nature seems to have made a provision for their support, for, instead of coming down round to the ground, the trunk, aboutten feet above it, divides into thick, wide tablets, which, widening as they come down, stand out like buttresses for the support of the tree; but even with this provision no day passes that we do not hear the crashing fall of some giant of the forest. Re-stowed the boat, and repaired Ijurra's palace, making it narrower and higher.
October 3.—Many huananas, with their broods, upon the river. Shot a large brown bird calledchansu, (ciganain Brazil;) it has a crest, erectile at pleasure, and looks like a pheasant. Large flocks frequent the cane on the banks of the river; they have a very game look, and are attractive to the sportsman; but the Indians call them a foul bird, and do not eat them; the crop of this was filled with green herbage.
October 4.—Clear all night, with heavy dew. The anchor, which is a sixty-four pound weight, had sunk so deep in the thick dark sand of the bottom as to require the united exertions of all hands to get it. Met three canoes going down loaded with sarsaparilla; bought some yuccas and plantains at a settlement of five families of Conibos, on the left bank of the river. Got also specimens of the black wax of the country, and "lacre," or sealing-wax, which is the gum of a tree, colored red with achote. The black wax is the production of a small bee very little larger than an ant, which builds its house in the ground. The white wax is deposited in the branches of a small tree, which are hollow, and divided into compartments like the joints of a cane. The wood is sufficiently soft to be perforated by the bee; the tree is calledcetica, and looks, though larger, like our alder bush.
October 5.—Stopped at a Conibo rancho on the right bank. Three men and six women, with children, were living in the rancho; they were very poor, and could sell us nothing. The river rose six inches from eight last night to five this morning. Shores to-day low, with large sand beaches; only four feet of water fifty or sixty yards from them. Current two and a quarter miles.
October 6.—Passed a settlement of Conibos on left bank—four houses, eight men and twenty-five women and children. It was quite a treat to see so familiar a flower as the convolvulus growing on the bank. It was not so large or so gay as in our gardens, but had a home look that was very pleasing. Passed a ravine, up which there is a settlement of Amajuacas Indians. These men are hunters, who live in the interior, and seldom come down upon the rivers. The Pirros and Conibos sometimes make war upon them, and bring away captives. Yesterday two men—one a Pano, from Sarayacu, and the other an Amajuaca—joined us to work their passage to Sarayacu. The Amajuaca was so good afellow, and worked so well, that I paid him as the others. Current two and a quarter miles.
October 7.—River half a mile wide and rising fast. Trunks of trees begin to come down. Stopped at a settlement calledGuanache. I saw only two houses, with four or five men and women; they said that the others were away gathering sarsaparilla. These people cannot count, and can never get from them any accurate idea of numbers. They are very little removed above the "beasts that perish." They are filthy, and covered with the sores and scars of sarna. The houses were very large, measuring between thirty and forty feet of length, and ten or fifteen in breadth. They consist of immense roofs of small poles and cane, thatched with palm, and supported by short stakes four feet high and three inches in diameter, planted in the ground three or four feet apart, and having the spaces, except between two in front, filled in with cane. Many persons "pig" together in one of these houses. Cotton was growing here. Current three and one-third miles.
October 9.—Stopped at the village of Sta. Maria, a Pirros settlement, on the left bank, of one hundred and fifty souls. The curaca, who seemed a more rational and respectable being than the rest, and whom I afterwards saw in Nauta, told me that there were thirty-threeMatrimonios. These Indians ascend the Ucayali in their canoes to a point not very far from Cuzco, where they go to exchange rare birds and animals for beads, fish-hooks, and the little silver ornaments which they wear in their noses. They bury their dead in his canoe under the floor of his house. The curaca said that the Conibos buried the personal effects of the deceased with him, differing in this from his people, the Pirros. Their language is also different; but in all other things they are as like as peas. They have no idea of a future state, and worship nothing. In fact, I think they have no ideas at all, although they can make a bow or a canoe, and take a fish; and their women can weave a coarse cloth from cotton, and dye it. They asked us if we had not in our boxes some great and infectious disease, which we could take up and let loose among their enemies, the Cashibos of the Pichitea.
There were two Moyobambinos domiciliated in the village, purchasing salt fish from the Indians. One of them told me that an Indian would furnish eighty pieces of salt fish for eight yards of tocuyo; this man may have "let the cat out of the bag," and showed me how they cheat the Indians. A yard of tocuyo is the general price of three pieces. A fish called payshi, which is the fish ordinarily salted, was brought in and cut up whilst we were here. It is a powerful fish, about six feet long and one and one-fourth in diameter. The head is fourteen inches long, withshort jaws and rather small month. The tongue, when dried, is as hard as bone, and is commonally used as a rasp. The scales of the belly and tail are bordered with a bright red streak, which makes the fish appear to be nearly encircled with a number of scarlet rings, and gives it a very pretty appearance. (It is calledpirarucuin Brazil.)
Just below Sta. Maria is the mouth of a creek, or small channel of the river, which, cutting across a narrow neck of land, connects two parts of a great bend of the river. These canals across an isthmus are called by the Indians tepishka. This one is only navigable when the river is full.
Two hours after leaving Sta. Maria we arrived at a beach where there was an establishment of Senhor Cauper's, for salting fish. These establishments are calledfactorias. A nephew of the old man has been here for two months, attending to the business. Instead of employing the Infidels, he brings Indians of Nauta with him—people generally who are in Mr. Cauper's debt. Twenty-five Indians collect and salt four thousand pieces of fish in six weeks.
Bought fifty pieces at six and a quarter cents for the support of my peons. From eight last night to six this morning, the river rose but two inches, and seems to be now falling.
The Indians on this river have in their houses cotton, maize, ground peas, (mani,) sweet potatoes, yuccas, plantains, fowls and fish, bows and arrows, lances, clubs, paddles, and pretty baskets made of cane. The women weave their own clothes, and those of their husbands, and manage to paint figures and devices on the cotton after it is woven. The Pirros and Conibos seem taller than they really are, on account of their costume, which is a long cotton gown. I have seen a fellow in one of these gowns, slowly striding over a beach, look, at a distance, like a Roman patrician in his "toga."
October 10.—River fell last night four inches. Stopped onPuiriisland to breakfast. There is a pretty little lake occupying nearly the whole centre of the island. We passed through a shallow and narrow arm of the river between Puiri island and the right bank. River a quarter of a mile wide above the island.
Met a Conibo, with his wife and two children, on the beach. This man was evidently the dandy of his tribe. He was painted with a broad stripe of red under each eye; three narrow stripes of blue were carried from one ear, across the upper lip, to the other—the two lower stripes plain, and the upper one bordered with figures. The whole of the lower jaw and chin were painted with a blue chain-work of figures, something resembling Chinese figures. Around his neck was a broad tight necklace of black and white beads, with a breastplate of thesame hanging from it, and partly concealed by the long gown, orcushma. His wrists were also adorned with wide bracelets of white beads, and above these a bracelet of lizard skins, set round with monkeys' teeth. He wore a little silver shield hanging from his nose, and a narrow, thin plate of silver, shaped like a paddle, two and a half inches long, thrust through a hole in the lower lip, and hanging on the chin. He had been to Cuzco, where he got his silver ornaments, and said it was a journey of four moons. We anchored in thirty-six feet water, and found a current of three miles the hour. Calm, clear night; much dew.
October 11.—Stopped to breakfast on a beach on the left bank, back of which, on the firm land, were two houses ofRemosIndians. There were twenty-two of them—men, women, and children—with three men of theShipebostribe. There seemed to be no uniformity in their paint, each one consulting his own taste; though there was one man and a woman, whom I understood to be man and wife, painted exactly alike. The Remos were low and small; the Shipebos taller. They were dressed in the common costume of the Ucayali, (the cushma,) and had their hair cut straight across the forehead, just above the eyes, so as to show the face, set, as it were, in a frame of hair. They are all filthy, and some have sarna. As far as I have observed, more women have this disease than men. Passed more huts afterwards, and some Indians seeking the young of the turtle on a beach. These people eat anything. I have known them to eat the eggs of the turtle with the young in them, and also turtle that had died a natural death and had become offensive.
October 12.—Passed a settlement of Conibos on the right bank, numbering twenty-five or thirty. They said that the inhabitants of a village calledHuamuco, which Smyth places near this place, had gone to the Pachitea.
October 13.—At breakfast we found a smaller kind of turtle calledcharapilla, better and more tender than the large turtle which is called charapa. Stopped at a little settlement of Shipebos on the right bank—twenty-five all told. Met three negroes, with a crew of Conibos, who had been up the river for sarsaparilla. They gathered the principal part of what they had (about sixty arrobas) in the Aguaytia, but had been five days up the Pachitea, and six up the Ucayali, above the Pachitea. They say that the Cashibos of that river would come to the beach in hostile attitude; but when they found that the strangers were not Indians of the Ucayali, but wore trousers and had guns, they fled.
Passed two houses of Conibos, about fifteen in number. One of them, taking us for padres, insisted that Ijurra should baptize his child;which was accordingly done. He gave it the name of the officiating priest, writing it on a bit of paper and giving it to the mother, who put it away carefully. I believe my companion was upbraided by the priest at Sarayacu for doing so. The head of the infant had been bound in boards, front and rear, and was flattened and increased in height. I do not observe that the heads of the adults bear any trace of this custom.
October 15.—Arrived at the village of Tierra Blanca, belonging to the Mission, having passed yesterday several settlements of the Indians, and seen for the first time the hills in the neighborhood of Sarayacu. It is a clean little town, of two hundred inhabitants, situated on an eminence on the left bank about twenty-five feet above the present level of the river. In the full the water approaches within a few feet of the lower houses.
A priest from Sarayacu, "Father Juan de Dios Lorente," has charge of the spiritual and pretty much of the temporal concerns of the village. He is here at this time celebrating some feast, and is the only white man present. The Indians, as usual at a feast time, were nearly all drunk, and made my men drunk also. When I wished to start, I sent Ijurra to a large house where they were drinking to bring our people to the boat; he soon came back, foaming with rage, and demanded a gun, that he might bring them to obedience; I soothed him, however, and went up to the house, where, by taking a drink with them, and practising the arts that I have often practised before in getting off to the ship refractory sailors who were drinking on shore, I succeeded in getting off a sufficient number of them to work the boat, and shoved off with as drunken a boat's crew as one could desire, leaving the small boat for the others to follow; this they are sure to do when they find that their clothes and bedding have been taken away. The padre said that if Ijurra had shot one, they would have murdered us all; but I doubt that, for we were well armed, and the Indians are afraid of guns.
Padre Lorente, when he joined the Mission, came down the Pachitea in nine days from Mayro to Sarayacu in the month of August; if so, there must have been an enormous current in the Pachitea and Ucayali above, for it takes thirty days to reach the mouth of the Pachitea from Sarayacu, which distance Padre Lorente descended in six; and Padre Plaza (who is said, however, to be a slow traveller) took eighteen to ascend the Pachitea from its mouth to Mayro, which Padre Lorente accomplished downwards in three. I judged from the short course of this river, and the great descent, that it had a powerful current. The padre said that, a day's journey above the mouth of the Pachitea, hismen had to get overboard and drag the canoe over the bottom for five hundred yards. He also said that the attempt to ascend at this season must result in failure; that it can only be done after Easter, when the current is not so rapid. The Aguaytia and Pishqui are also small streams, where the Indians have to wade and drag the canoes.
October 16.—Started at 6 a. m.; stopped at half-past five opposite the mouth of the river Catalina. It seemed thirty yards wide, and had a small island in front.
The ascent of the river is very tedious; we barely creep along against the force of the current, and day after day "wearies by" in the most monotonous routine. I frequently land, and with gun on shoulder, and clad only in shirt and drawers, walk for miles along the beaches. My greatest pleasure is to watch the boat struggling up against the tide. This is always accompanied with emotions of pride, mingled with a curious and scarcely definable feeling of surprise. It was almost startling to see, at her mast-head, the beautiful and well-beloved flag of my country dancing merrily in the breeze on the waters of the strange river, and waiving above the heads of the swarthy and grim figures below. I felt a proud affection for it; I had carried it where it had never been before; there was a bond between us; we were alone in a strange land; and it and I were brothers in the wilderness.
October 17.—Met ten canoes of Conibos—twenty-eight men, women, and children—who had been on an excursion, with no particular object, as far as the first stones in the Ucayali. This is about thirty-eight days above Sarayacu, at a place called in Quichua "Rumi Callarina," or commencement of the rocks; river rising for the last two or three days; passed a village of Shipebos, called Cushmuruna; hills in sight, bearing south.
October 18.—At 11 a. m. we entered the Caño of Sarayacu; at this season this is not more than fifteen or eighteen feet wide, and nearly covered with a tall grass something like broom-corn, or a small species of cane. (This is the food for the vaca marina.) The caño has as much as six feet depth in the middle for two miles, but it soon contracts so as scarcely to allow room for my boat to pass, and becomes shallow and obstructed with the branches of small trees which bend over it. It also, about two miles from its mouth, changes its character of caño, or arm of the main river, and becomes the little river of Sarayacu, which retires and advances in accordance with the movements of its great neighbor.
We could not get our boat nearer than within a quarter of a mile of the town; so we took small canoes from the bank, and carried up ourequipage in them. We were hospitably received by the padres, and lodgings were given us in the convento, a large house with several rooms in it.
We found Sarayacu a rather neat-looking Indian village, of about one thousand inhabitants, including Belen, a small town of one hundred and fifty inhabitants, one and a half mile distant. It, or rather the missionary station—including the towns of Sta. Catalina and Tierra Blanca—is governed by four Franciscan friars, of the college of Ocopa. The principal and prefect, Padre Juan Chrisostomo Cimini, being now absent on a visit to Ocopa, the general direction is left in the hands of Father Vicente Calvo, assisted by the Fathers Bregati and Lorente, who have charge respectively of Sta. Catalina and Tierra Blanca.
Father Calvo, meek and humble in personal concerns, yet full of zeal and spirit for his office, clad in his long serge gown, belted with a cord, with bare feet and accurate tonsure, habitual stoop, and generally bearing upon his shoulder a beautiful and saucy bird of the parrot kind, calledchiriclis, was my beau ideal of a missionary monk. He is an Arragonese, and had served as a priest in the army of Don Carlos. Bregati is a young and handsome Italian, whom Father Calvo sometimes calls St. John. Lorente was a tall, grave, and cold-looking Catalan. A lay-brother named Maquin, who did the cooking, and who was unwearied in his attentions to us, made up the establishment. I was sick here, and think that I shall ever remember with gratitude the affectionate kindness of these pious and devoted friars of St. Francis.
The town is situated on a level plain elevated one hundred feet above the rivulet of the same name, which empties into the Ucayali at three miles distant.
The rivulet does not afford sufficient water for a canoe in the dry season; but at that time a fine road might be made through the forest to the banks of the Ucayali; this probably would be miry and deep in the rainy season, which is from the first of November to Easter. We had rain nearly every day that we were there, but it was in passing showers, alternating with a hot sun. The climate of Sarayacu is delightful; the maximum thermometer, at 3 p. m., being 84½°; the minimum, at 9 a. m., 74. The average temperature of the day is 79; the nights are sufficiently cool to allow one to sleep with comfort under a musquito curtain made of gingham. These insects are less troublesome here than might be expected, which may be seen from the fact that the priests are able to live without wearing stockings; but it is a continual penance, quite equal, I should think, to self-flagellation once a week.
The soil is very prolific, but thin and light; at half a foot below thesurface there is pure sand; and no Indian thinks of cultivating the same farm longer than three years; he then clears the forest and plants another. There is nothing but a little coffee produced for sale in the neighborhood of the town. The fathers extract about three hundred arrobas of sarsaparilla, from the small streams above, and sell it to Senhor Cauper in Nauta. This gives them a profit of about five hundred dollars. The College at Ocopa allows them a dollar for every mass said or sung. The four padres are able to perform about seven hundred annually, (those for Sundays and feast-days are not paid for;) and this income of twelve hundred dollars is appropriated to the repairs of the churches and conventos, church furniture, the vestments of the priests, their table and chamber furniture, and some little luxuries—such as sugar, flower, vinegar, &c., bought of the Portuguese below.
The padres have recently obtained an order from the prefect of the department of Amazonas, giving them the exclusive right of collecting sarsaparilla on the Ucayali and its tributaries; but I doubt if this will benefit them much, for, there being no power to enforce the decree, the Portuguese will send their agents there as before.
Each padre has twoMitayos, appointed monthly—one a hunter, the other a fisherman—to supply his table with the products of the forest and the river. The Fiscales cultivate him a small farm for his yuccas and plantains, and he himself raises poultry and eggs; they also make him rum from the sugar-cane, of which he needs a large supply to give to the constables, (Varayos, from "vara," a wand, each one carrying a cane,) the Fiscales, and the Mitayos.
The government is paternal. The Indians recognise in the padre the power to appoint and remove curacas, captains, and other officers; to inflict stripes; and to confine in the stocks. They obey the priest's orders readily, and seem tractable and docile. They take advantage, however, of Father Calvo's good nature, and are sometimes a little insolent. On an occasion of this kind, my friend Ijurra, who is always an advocate of strong measures, and says that in the government of the Indians there is nothing like thesanto palo, (sacred cudgel,) asked Father Calvo why he did not put the impudent rascal in the stocks. But the good Father replied that he did not like to do it—that it was cruel, and hurt the poor fellow's legs.
The Indians here, as elsewhere, are drunken and lazy. The women do most of the work; carry most of the burdens to and from the chacras and canoes; make the masato, and the earthen vessels out of which it is drunk; spin the cotton and weave the cloth; cook and take care of the children. And their reward is to be maltreated by their husbands, and,in their drunken frolics, to be cruelly beaten, and sometimes badly wounded.