Historical and descriptive narrative of twenty years' residence in South America (Vol 2 of 3) / Containing travels in Arauco, Chile, Peru, and Colombia; with an account of the revolution, its rise, progress, and results

by active 1803-1825 William Bennet Stevenson

A road through the woods leads from Esmeraldas to Atacames, a distance of five leagues. Atacames is a little town near the sea, having a small river of fresh water, which empties itself into the ocean on the south side. A projecting headland forms a convenient roadstead, which has good anchorage, and owing to the universal serenity of the weather the port may be considered a safe one. Two leagues to the northward of this place there is a high bluff headland, called Morro Grande, which with the Morro de Atacames forms the bay, the best anchorage in which is under the headland of Atacames. The landing on the beach close to the town is generally good, but when the contrary happens there is another and a better to the westward of Atacames.

The town is composed of about thirty houses, built like those of the Puná, having only an upper story. The inhabitants employ themselves in the cultivation of their chacras, scattered along the side of the small rivulet of Atacames, which is generally navigable for canoes about five leagues from the town. More attention has been paid here to the cultivation of cocoa than at Esmeraldas, and considerable profit has been derived from it. In 1805, an officer in the Spanish navy employed several of the natives to fell timber for the Lima market, one small cargo of which was exported, but through the interest of the Guayaquil merchants the law of puertos no abilitados, close ports, was enforced, and an end was put to the trade. The inhabitants of Atacames are of the same race with those of Esmeraldas; but they do not speak the same language—they make use of the Spanish, and consider themselves Spanish population.

Near the beach there are several very lofty coco-nut palms, and a great abundance of lime trees, whence any quantity of their fruit or acid might be obtained; but as the trees are intermixed with the manzanillo, the utmost precaution is necessary in order to prevent strangers from poisoning themselves with the fruit. The tree is very similar to a low bushy apple tree, and the fruit has the appearance of a small apple; but it is so extremely poisonous, that if a person inadvertently taste it, a universal swelling of the body and death are the inevitable consequences. The poisonous qualities of this tree are so great, that if any one incautiously avail himself of its shade, sickness ensues, and death would follow should he sleep under it in the evening. When the natives cannot obtain the poison from Maynas for their puas, they use the sap of the manzanillo, procured by making incisions in the bark of the tree; but the use of it is attended with considerable risk, and the poison is not so certain to kill the game; besides, the natives are averse to use game as food when killed by it.

From Atacames to the mouth of the Esmeraldas river, a distance of four leagues, goods might be conveyed and put on board canoes for their passage up to the town, or to the Embarcadero, where, if the importance of mercantile pursuits be duly considered by the government, facilities may be given at a small expence to the navigation of this river. The greater part of the south side is favourable to the formation of a road as far as the confluence of the river Blanco with that called Piti.

To the northward of the river Esmeraldas there are several small rivers which empty themselves into the sea; and at the embouchures of each there are a few houses. At the distance of seven leagues stands Rio Verde, consisting of about twenty houses and a small chapel. The river is navigable for canoes about eight leagues, is full of fish, and on its banks are many houses and plantations. Seven leagues from Rio Verde is the river Tola, and about two leagues from the mouth is the town of the same name, containing about a hundred houses and a parish church. Between the town and the sea there is a very extensive savana, on which are kept upwards of five hundred head of horned cattle.

When the road called de Malbucho was opened by the president of Quito in 1804, as a communication between the capital and the coast, this was intended to have been the port; but on examination it was found, that the mouth of the river was almost choked by a sand-bank, and a schooner sent down by the Viceroy of Peru to examine the port foundered on the bar. To the northward of La Tola there is a convenient harbour, called Limones, and another, at a short distance to the northward of this, is called Pianguapi, or San Pedro; all these communicate by an estuary, which receives its fresh water from the river Tola.

The country adjoining the line of coast reaching from Atacames to La Tola is entirely covered with wood of an excellent quality both for the cabinet-maker and the architect; for the former the principal varieties are the caobano, a species of mahogany, very large, and in great abundance; ebony, cascol, a hard wood, completely black, and very large; pusilde, of the colour and almost of the consistency of ivory; of this wood they make billiard balls: there is also red sandal wood, of a beautiful lively red colour, and very fragrant; the bark contains such an abundance of aromatic resin, that when heated by the sun it exudes and scents the air to the distance of five hundred yards from the tree. The natives use the resin dissolved in rum to cure wounds. Here too is the guayacan, of a green hue, with dark brown veins: this wood is remarkably hard, the tree is very lofty and straight, and on this account the natives generally choose it for the upright posts which support their houses: when kept continually wet for eight or ten months it petrifies, and it is a common thing for the natives to dig at the foot of an old post, and break off pieces of the petrified wood for flints.

For architectural purposes timber grows in great luxuriance, and to an extraordinary size. There is no doubt that ere long the dock-yard of Guayaquil and the Peruvian markets must be supplied with guachapeli, cedar, robles, a kind of oak, marias, balsams, laurels, and other trees from the woods of Esmeraldas, which as yet may be said to be untouched.

Besides the varieties just mentioned, there is an abundance of ceibos, balsas, and matapalos, which are of an enormous size, and supply timber for canoes and rafts. The matapalo, kill tree, is so called because it entwines itself with any other trees that are near it, and by depriving them of their sap, or preventing the circulation, destroys them. I have seen several of these trees, which three feet above the ground measured upwards of twenty-five feet in circumference. The wood is soft and light, and of no other use than that to which it is applied by the natives. A kind of gum exudes from the bark, or is drawn from it by making incisions, and in many parts of Peru and Colombia is used as an antidote for ruptures.

The coutchouc tree is quite common in almost all parts of the forests; it is large but not very lofty, and the wood is entirely useless; however, the tree produces what is of much greater value to the natives: the bark of the trunk is taken off and subjected to repeated washings; they beat it with small stones until the fibres are regularly extended, so that the whole is about one-eighth of an inch in thickness; it is then dried, and used as a bed, sometimes as a curtain, a shelter in the woods against the sun or rain, or as a sail for their canoes. Bark when thus prepared is called a damajagua. Some of them measure two and a half yards long and from one to two broad; the larger ones are sold for three or four dollars each.