The Andes and the Amazon Part 11

[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 alt.i.tude 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 s.h.i.+eld 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-gla.s.ses, 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 pa.s.sports 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 Des.p.a.cho 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 Inst.i.tuto de Smithsonian de Was.h.i.+ngton, va a la provincia de Oriente con el objeto de esplorarla en c.u.mplimiento 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 pa.s.sable 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 s.h.i.+pped by way of Panama to Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 sh.o.r.es 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 s.h.i.+nes 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 ma.s.s 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 rus.h.i.+ng by us fresh from that sea of commerce which laves the sh.o.r.es 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 Was.h.i.+ngton's. In all his transactions we noticed no attempt to prevaricate or deceive; what he promised he performed to the letter. It was refres.h.i.+ng 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 impa.s.sable 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 pa.s.sage 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Napo Peon.]

[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 pa.s.s 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, a.s.sembled 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: reproduction of a signature is here]

"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 gra.s.sy 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 a.s.sistance was not needed in the latter part of the journey, for our keen appet.i.tes 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.s through Baeza, where the trail divides; one branch pa.s.sing 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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 b.u.t.terflies, 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 cras.h.i.+ng 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 cl.u.s.ters; 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 pa.s.sage 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 impa.s.sable 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sage.

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 alt.i.tude 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, enn.o.bled 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 refres.h.i.+ng 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 b.u.t.terflies.

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 s.p.a.ce 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. Aga.s.siz, 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, lavis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sembled 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, s.h.i.+rtless, 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 superst.i.tious, 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 h.e.l.l. 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.