July 2nd. Started at 3.30 a.m. This morning we see but few ducks or other birds, the wind perhaps driving them to cover, as it blows strong from the north-east. We have now passed the run of the Santa Ana people, for we do not find the playas sown with anything; nor do we meet with canoes, as we did yesterday, when we saw two or three lots of these Santa Ana Indians. This was a very uneventful day, with no shooting to speak of. Stopped for the night about 7 p.m.
July 3rd. Started about 4.30 a.m., rather later than usual, the men having overslept themselves; for we had intended to make the start about two instead of after four o’clock. Soon after sunrise we met a canoe with Canichana Indians, going to some chaco that they have near here, so we are now in the San Pedro district. We don’t make the progress I had hoped for, and it is clear that my canoe is undermanned; so I fear we shall take eight or ten days from Exaltacion to Trinidad instead of the usual six or seven. I found to-day that we had passed the river Apiri yesterday morning, about breakfast-time. This river appears to be placed in the maps (Johnston’s) too high up the Mamoré by about a day’s journey—say fifteen or twenty miles. The pueblo of San Borja is on this river, but is a very small and insignificant place.
At 3 p.m. a heavy storm of rain, with thunder and lightning, came up with the wind, which has for the last two or three days been blowing from the north-east. About a third of an inch of rain fell. We stopped for the night about seven o’clock, and started the next morning, July 4th, shortly before 3 a.m., making a good early morning run. At daybreak plenty of duck were about, and I got a couple of marrecas and five cuervos, the latter a kind of black teal that I consider to be very good eating. In the afternoon my captain, one Pedro Yche, a Trinitario Indian, left his steering for a time, and took a spell at the paddles. He is a remarkably fine Indian, and very strong, being far above the ordinary stamina of the Indians. On the journey up the rapids he was the moving spirit amongst Don Miguel’s men, and whenever he put his shoulder to the canoes, in hauling them over the land portages, they had to go! To-day he started paddling with such good will that the paddle broke with the force he exerted in pulling it through the water. As we were short of paddles, he made the men cut a lot of long “chuchia” (wild cane) poles, from twelve to fourteen feet in length, and over the shallow waters of the playas we poled along, progressing very fairly. This is a favourite method with the Brazilians when travelling on the rivers, but the Bolivian Indians soon tire at it, and seem to prefer the monotonous work of paddling. At night we stopped opposite to the mouth of the river Jamucheo or Tijamuchi, seven days’ journey up which is the pueblo of San Ignacio. To-day my total shooting was three ducks, eight cuervos, and a pava—a good bag, sufficient for a good “pot” and a grill for all hands.
July 5th. We started very early—at 3 a.m.—and about mid-day stopped for breakfast at the “puerto” or landing-place for the village of San Pedro, which is situated at the head of the river Machupa, which is an affluent of the Itenez. This village is peopled by the Canichana tribe of the Beni Indians, and is about a couple of leagues from the eastern bank of the Mamoré. There must be some slightly raised land, sufficiently elevated to form a watershed, a short distance from this bank of the great river, for the Machupa and other affluents of the Itenez run in a north-easterly direction, but the elevations are not of sufficient size to be seen as hills. There are two ports for San Pedro, at the upper one of which we stayed for the night. The sheds at these ports are large and well built, an Indian always living at them, who is termed the sentinel, and whose duty is to take care of the canoes of the villagers or traders, who leave their craft at the port while they visit the pueblo. From the style of the work, the quality of the timber, and the tidiness of the place, my previous favourable opinion, obtained by the employment of a few Canichanas in San Antonio, was confirmed, to the effect that these Indians are the most desirable of any of the various tribes of the Beni. They are excellent workmen with the axe, and are, I think, less addicted to the use of ardent spirits than the Cayubabas or the Trinitarios. Traders going to San Pedro use the port on the Mamoré instead of going the round by the river Itenez. Their canoes are hauled up on land, and dragged by oxen across the two leagues of pampa between the Mamoré and the Machupa; and when steam navigation on the Mamoré commences, no doubt a corduroy road over this tract would be a great acquisition, so that the town of San Pedro may be accessible during all seasons from the Mamoré.
July 6th. We started again about 3 a.m., and at daybreak came to a playa where the current ran very strong; so tried the other side, but found the current worse, and the bank falling. We therefore returned to the playa, and dragged the canoe about a mile with a light rope, the men walking on the sand, and a couple of men in the canoe keeping her in a straight course with their chuchia poles. This morning the river was rising, and so the current was more rapid than usual, and the sandbanks were falling away as the water rose. In the afternoon we passed the port of the village of San Xavier, which is situated on a creek running into the Mamoré on its right bank, and at 5.30 p.m. stopped for the night at some “chacos” on the left bank of the river. During the night there was a little rain, and the wind changed from the north, where it had been for the last few days, round to the south, thus promising us some more cold nights.
July 7th. The south wind caused the day to break cold and dull, the thermometer going down to 66° Fahr., and not beginning to rise until past eight o’clock in the day; nevertheless, the men started early, because they hoped to get to the puerto of Trinidad, on the river Ybari, before nightfall. No shooting to-day, and very dull, unpleasant travelling on account of the cold; so I wrapped myself up in my Scotch maud, and read till twelve o’clock, when we stopped for breakfast. During the morning we were much delayed by the strong wind, which, being from the south, was right in our faces, and we were quite unable to make head against it in the shallow waters over the playas; we had, therefore, to keep under the banks in order to be somewhat sheltered from the wind, but as these banks were falling ones (“tierras disbarrancandas”), it was very unpleasant work. I had some sharp words with my captain, Pedro Yche, who is a good fellow, but very self-willed, and was far too fond of risking the canoe and our lives under these banks rather than brave the cold wind on the exposed playas. In consequence of all this trouble we did not make the progress we had hoped for, and at nightfall I ordered the canoe to the left bank of the river, where the banks were not falling, and where we could pass the night secure from the danger of being crushed by a heavy fall of earth; but we had a very bad night on account of the powerful wind, which many times during the night I fancied would cause the canoe to drag her moorings.
July 8th. The thermometer went down to 57°, and the night appeared to me to be about the coldest I had yet passed in the tropics; but perhaps above the cachuelas, when the south wind was blowing, it might have been as cold. I had not then a thermometer to register by, and was able to keep under the toldeta; but last night this arrangement was quite useless, for the wind blew right through the camarota with a force so great as to render the fixing up of a curtain an utter impossibility. I think that Humboldt says that 21·8° Centigrade, equal to say 71° Fahrenheit, kept him from sleeping, so that our 57° may be considered as very trying indeed; and so we found it.
We made a start about 5.30 a.m., as soon as daylight appeared—for there was no temptation to linger under our blankets, which were quite unable to keep out the searching wind—and about 7.30 we left the Mamoré, entering a river called Ybari, about 100 yards wide at its mouth. In this part of the Mamoré there are two rivers of the same name, “Ybari,” and on one of these, the one now referred to, the town of Trinidad, the capital of the department of the Beni, is situated; on the other, about a couple of days’ journey southward, is the village of Loreto. This Ybari has plenty of water all the year round, and at present appears to be fairly navigable for small steamers, as it is perfectly free from dead wood or sandbanks, and the Indians tell me that even in the dry season there is water enough for large gariteas that draw, when loaded, four or five feet.
About mid-day we got to some chacos, or plantations, and stopped at one for breakfast, as it belonged to a “pariente,” or relation, of my captain Pedro. The barraca was, however, empty, and the whole place seemed left to take care of itself. It was said that the people had gone to Cuatro Ojos, on the river Piray, the port for the town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the most important place in the north-east of Bolivia. There was not much to lose in the chaco, for the chocolotales have no fruit at this season, and the “caña,” or sugar-cane, was not ripe, and the only edible things to be found in the clearing were pumpkins, called here “oquejos” (the nearest spelling that I can get in Spanish, the “qu” standing for “k,” but “okehose” in English would give the nearest pronunciation), and in Brazil “jurumus” and “sapallos.” We helped ourselves to some of these as an addition to our chupe, and after our meal proceeded on our journey, the wind blowing so cold and strong that we made very poor progress. At nightfall we were still a good way from the puerto for Trinidad, so we stopped for the night at another of the chacos, which are now encountered pretty frequently on either side of the Ybari.
July 9th. The thermometer during the night went down to 52½°, and from one’s feelings it might easily be thought that we were travelling in the northern hemisphere instead of in the southern. We arrived at the port of Trinidad about 9 a.m., and finding that the town was about two leagues from the river, we prepared our breakfast and sent messengers to the town for horses to ride there on, and for bullock-carts for the baggage. The so-called port of Trinidad is like all the other ports on the rivers, simply a place where, from the depth of water, canoes can be moored to the bank, a few steps being cut up the bank to the shed at the top where the sentinel, whose duty it is to watch the canoes, finds shelter.