Leave Exaltacion—Improvement in crew—Mobima Indians of Santa Ana—“Mani” planted on sandbanks—The river Yacuma—Trading up the Yacuma to Reyes, San Pablo, San Borja, etc.—Multitudes of mosquitoes, etc.—Shoal of fish—Storks, ducks, flamingoes—Canichana Indians—The river Apiri and the village of San Ignacio—Poling over the shallows—The river Jamucheo—San Pedro—Traders haul their canoes over a portage to San Pedro—Weather turns very cold—The river Ybari—Arrival at Trinidad.
On the 28th of June I continued my journey up the river Mamoré, starting from the puerto of Exaltacion about 1 p.m., and soon arriving at a landing-place that is used when the river is full in the rainy season. This appeared to me to be a much better place for a permanent port, although it is further away from the village than the lower one, but it has the advantage that when the river is full it fills a creek that runs to within a quarter of a mile of the town, and up which canoes can then ascend, while, in the dry season, it is not so subject to dangerous landslips as the lower port is, for the banks are not nearly so high.
We paddled on up stream till about 9 p.m., when we stopped for the night at a playa, starting the next morning at 5 a.m. with every prospect of a good day’s work, as the men are all strong and well, and of a much better class than my old crew. I have now eight Trinitarios and two Cruzeños, these last being much better paddlers than Cruzeños generally are, one of them also bidding fair to make me a very useful servant in place of the lad that decamped yesterday. The river continues to be about half a mile in width, and presents no features of special interest, large playas or sandbanks alternating with long stretches of falling banks. In the afternoon we saw a canoe with Mobima Indians from Santa Ana on the Yacuma River, who come to the large playas on the Mamoré in the dry season, to sow maize and various kinds of beans thereon. We halted at 9 p.m., the night being a very unpleasant one from the great number of mosquitoes, the camarota of the canoe being so full of traps that it was impossible to set up the “toldeta,” or mosquito curtain, without letting in a lot of these bloodthirsty monsters; and on day appearing, I found the curtain was a perfect hive of them, and that I had suffered a serious loss of vital fluid. We started early the next morning (June 30th), the men requiring very little urging. At daybreak I went ashore on a large playa, and found it planted with two sorts of “frijoles,” or beans, and a kind of small pulse, called here “mani,” which, from the description given me, appears to be much like East Indian “gram” (i.e. the large red class). This planting is carried on by the Santa Ana people, who come here in their narrow canoes or dug-outs, very long and very narrow, some being perhaps thirty feet long by sixteen or eighteen inches wide. This is the class of canoe used by the Cayubabas of Exaltacion, and by most of the Indian tribes of the Beni.
About half-past two in the afternoon we passed the mouth of the river Yacuma, on which is the pueblo of Santa Ana, the head-quarters of the Mobima Indians. From the breadth at its mouth, the river appears to be of considerable size; and the village is said to be “doce tornos,” or twelve bends up river, this being the method by which the Indians describe a distance on these rivers. Probably the village is a good day’s paddle from the junction of the Yacuma with the Mamoré. It is by this river that traders take goods for the pueblos of Reyes, San Pablo, San Borja, and Santa Cruz, all of which are peopled by the Maropa Indians, and from which villages a trade is carried to the towns of Apolobamba in Bolivian territory, and Sandia in Peruvian. The river Yacuma is said to be navigable all the year round for large canoes, and is free from savages; therefore a small steamer may be advantageously employed here, after the construction of the railway of the cachuelas. The Beni River is said to be known from its sources, near La Paz, down to Cavinas, where there is a small village and a mission; but below that point few persons, if any, have of late years navigated, for the savages, who infest the lands near the junction of the Beni and the Mamoré, at the Madeira Falls, are much dreaded. Doubtless these savages would be easily driven off when navigation commences in earnest on these waters, but it is just as well to have two lines of communication with the south-eastern towns of Peru. One of the merchants who accompanied me up the rapids, sold goods, to the value of £3400, in Exaltacion to a trader who sends canoes up the affluents of the Mamoré or the Itenez to the various pueblos of the department of the Beni, such as San Joaquin, San Ramon, San Nicolas, and San Pedro on the Machupa River, Magdalena on the Itonama, Concepcion de Baures and El Carmen on the Baures or Blanco River, the before-mentioned town of Reyes and others on the Yacuma, and San Ignacio on the Jamucheo. Considerable trade will doubtless be opened up with these towns and villages, and work will be found for two small steamers; one to run on the affluents of the Mamoré, and the other on those of the Itenez, the head-quarters of both being at Exaltacion or El Cerrito, just below.
July 1st. Started at 5 a.m., having had better luck with the mosquitoes last night, as I only had about half a dozen under the curtain instead of about a hundred, as I had the night before; but the men, who slept on shore on a high sandbank, passed a bad time and got no sleep at all, as the wind continually lifted up the toldetas and allowed the mosquitoes a free right of way. As soon as it was light I had pretty good sport, getting a “cabeça seca,” three ducks, and a pava in a very short time. There is always plenty of game to be had on this part of the river—so much so that one need scarcely provide any charqui, if it were not rather imprudent to trust entirely to one’s gun for the supply of a canoe’s crew of boatmen.
THE BATA.
The country we pass through is very uniform, “playas” and “tierras disbarrancandas,” and bits of pampa land, alternating with each other. There are no “barbaros” hereabouts, and I should say the lands from Exaltacion to Trinidad would be very valuable for emigration; climate splendid, land of excellent quality for the production of crops of sugar-cane, rice, maize, plantains, and every other description of tropical produce, together with capital pampas for cattle rearing. The bag to-day was splendid—two cabeça secas, a very large stork, called a “bata,” four ducks, and a pava; total eight. Also, we got about a dozen good-sized fish, which the men pulled out with their hands, there being a shoal of them close inshore; and if we had had a net we could have got a canoe full with ease. The “bata” is of the stork tribe; it stands about five feet high. Its wings, fully extended, cover eight feet six inches; colour white, head without feathers, but deep black skin, with red bag or wattle on the breast, where the body-feathers commence. The beak is black, with a curious upward turn, and is about twelve inches long. This fellow I shot with the rifle at about 200 yards. He had strength left to make for the bush, but my young retriever “Burro” bolted after him and kept him prisoner amongst a heap of dead timber, until one of the Indians got up to him and finished him off with sundry blows on the head. The flesh of these birds is excellent eating, a steak off the breast, toasted over the wood fire, being very tasty. We saw a pair or two of flamingoes, and also some spoonbills; but these birds seem very wary, and do not allow one to get even within a rifle-shot of 200 or 300 yards.