On September 22nd we made an early start. Pedro Nunes went away in a small boat, as he wanted to go and explore a small tributary of the Secundury. The expedition travelled up the main stream at a great pace, with the many men who were rowing and punting.
Filippe, Benedicto and I suffered horrible internal pains that day owing to our careless eating the previous afternoon.
Caripuna Indians.
Indian Idols of the Putumayo District.
I was greatly worried by the man who had been left in charge of the expedition—a man of extreme kindness, but an incessant talker. He spoke so loudly, repeating the same things over and over again, that in my weak state, and accustomed as we were to the deathly silence of the forest, it tired me inexpressibly. His conversation consisted entirely of accusing everybody he knew of being robbers and assassins, and in long descriptions, with numberless figures, to show how he had been robbed of small sums of money by various people he had met in his lifetime.
I presented him with £10 sterling, hoping that he would keep quiet, as that seemed to be the entire sum of which he had been robbed by his relatives and friends; also because on seeing our wretched condition, he had presented me with an enormous pair of shoes, about six sizes too large for me. When I walked in them, especially up and down the steep banks, I lost now one shoe, now the other, so big were they. But I was grateful to him, as he would not take payment for them, and they saved my feet to a certain extent—when I could keep them on—from the thorns, which were numerous in that region.