As we had lowered our altitude 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, ennobled 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 refreshing 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 butterflies.
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 space 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. Agassiz, 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, lavishing upon it such ideas of beauty and taste as they have, and bringing at least their best to their humble altar." Founded by Dávalos 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 assembled 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, shirtless, 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 superstitious, 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 hell. 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.
The only sign of industry in Archidona is the manufacture of pita thread from the aloe. It is exported to Quito on human backs. The inhabitants also collect copal at the headwaters of the Hondachi, and use it for illumination. It can be bought in Archidona for three or four cents a pound. The gum exudes from a lofty leguminous tree having an oak-like bark. It resembles the animé of Madagascar rather than the copal of India, which flows from an entirely different tree. Guayusa, or "Napo tea," is another and celebrated production of Archidona. It is the large leaf of a tall shrub growing wild. An infusion of guayusa, like the maté of Paraguay (which belongs to the same genus Ilex), is so refreshing it supplies for a long time the place of food. The Indians will go to Quito on this beverage alone, its virtues being similar to those of coca, on the strength of which the posts of the Incas used to travel incredible distances. It is by no means, however, such a stimulant. It is a singular fact, observes Dr. Jameson, that tea, coffee, cacao, maté, and guayusa contain the same alkaloid caffeine. The last, however, contains only one fifteenth as much of the active principle as tea, and no volatile oil. Herndon found guayusa on the Ucayali.
At Archidona we took a new set of peons for Napo, as the Papallactans do not travel farther. The distance is sixteen miles, and the path is comparatively good, though it crosses two rivers, the Misagualli and Tena. On this journey we found the only serpent seen since leaving Quito. This solitary specimen was sluggish and harmless, but exceedingly beautiful. It was the Amphisbœna fuliginosa, or "slow-worm." It lives in the chambers of the Saüba ants. We met a procession of these ants, each carrying a circular piece of a leaf vertically over its head. These insects are peculiar to tropical America, and are much dreaded in Brazil, where they soon despoil valuable trees of their foliage. They cut the leaves with their scissor-like jaws, and use them to thatch the domes at the entrance of their subterranean dwellings.
At Napo we took possession of the governor's house. Each village in the Napo province was obliged to build an edifice of split bamboo for that dignitary; and, as he no longer exists, they are left unoccupied. They generally stand on the highest and best site in the town, and are a god-send to travelers. Immediately on our arrival, the Indian governor and his staff of justices called to see what we wanted, and during our stay supplied us with chickens, eggs, plantains, yucas, and fuel. His excellency would always come, silver-headed cane in hand, though the justices had only six eggs or a single fowl to bring us. The alcalde also paid us his respects. He is an old blanco (as the whites are called), doing a little traffic in gold dust, lienzo, and pita, but is the highest representative of Ecuador in the Napo country. Here, too, we met, to our great delight, Mr. George Edwards, a native of Connecticut, who has settled himself, probably for life, in the depths of this wilderness. He was equally rejoiced to see the face and hear the speech of a countryman. His industry and upright character have won for him the respect and good-will of the Indians, and he is favorably known in Quito. The government has given him a tract of land on the Yusupino, two miles west of Napo village. Here he is cultivating vanilla, of which he has now three thousand plants, and also his patience, for six years elapse after transplanting before a pod appears. He has been so long in the country (thirteen years) his English would now and then run off into Spanish or Quichua.
Napo is prettily situated on the left bank of the Rio Napo, a dense forest inclosing it on every side. The maximum number of inhabitants is eighty families; but many of these are in town only in festival seasons. It was well for us that we reached the Napo during the feasts; otherwise we might not have found men enough to man our canoes down the river. There are three or four blancos, petty merchants, who follow the old Spanish practice of compulsory sales, forcing the Indians to take lienzo, knives, beads, etc., at exorbitant prices, and making them pay in gold dust and pita. This kind of commerce is known under the name of repartos. It is hard to find an Indian whose gold or whose labor is not claimed by the blancos. The present and possible productions of this region are: bananas, plantains, yucas,[116] yams, sweet potatoes, rice, beans, corn, lemons, oranges, chirimoyas, anonas (a similar fruit to the preceding), pine-apples, palm cabbages, guavas, guayavas, castor-oil beans, coffee, cacao, cinnamon, India-rubber, vanilla (two kinds),[117] chonta-palm nuts, sarsaparilla, contrayerva (a mint), tobacco (of superior quality), and guayusa; of woods, balsam, red wood, Brazil wood, palo de cruz, palo de sangre, ramo caspi, quilla caspi, guayacan (or "holy wood," being much used for images), ivory palm, a kind of ebony, cedar, and aguana (the last two used for making canoes); of dyewoods, sarne (dark red), tinta (blue), terriri, and quito (black); of gums, estoraque (a balsam) and copal, besides a black beeswax, the production of a small (Trigona) bee, that builds its comb in the ground; of manufactures, pita, hammocks, twine, calabashes, aguardiente (from the plantain), chicha (from the yuca),[118] sugar and molasses (from the cane, which grows luxuriantly), and manati-lard; of minerals, gold dust. The gold, in minute spangles, is washed down by the rivers at flood time, chiefly from the Llanganati Mountains. The articles desired in exchange are lienzo, thread, needles, axes, hoes, knives, fish-hooks, rings, medals, crosses, beads, mirrors, salt, and poison. Quito nearly monopolizes the trade; though a few canoes go down the Napo to the Marañon after salt and poison. The salt comes from near Chasuta, on the Huallaga;[119] the urari from the Ticuna Indians. It takes about twenty days to paddle down to the Marañon, and three months to pole up. The Napo is navigable for a flat-bottomed steamer as far as Santa Rosa,[120] and it is a wonder that Anglo-Saxon enterprise has not put one upon these waters. The profits would be great, as soon as commercial relations with the various tribes were established.[121] Four yards of coarse cotton cloth, for example, will exchange for one hundred pounds of sarsaparilla. Urari is sold at Napo for its weight in silver. By a decree of the Ecuadorian Congress, there will be no duty on foreign goods entering the Napo for twenty years. The Napo region, under proper cultivation, would yield the most valuable productions of either hemisphere in profusion. But agriculture is unknown; there is no word for plow. The natives spend most of their time in idleness, or feasting and hunting. Their weapons are blow-guns and wooden spears; our guns they call by a word which signifies "thunder and lightning." Laying up for the future or for commerce is foreign to their ideas. The houses are all built of bamboo tied together with lianas, and shingled with leaves of the sunipanga palm. The Indians are peaceful, good-natured, and idle. They seldom steal any thing but food. Their only stimulants are chicha, guayusa, and tobacco. This last they roll up in plantain leaves and smoke, or snuff an infusion of it through the nose from the upper bill of a toucan. "The Peruvians (says Prescott, quoting Garcilasso) differ from every other Indian nation to whom tobacco was known by using it only for medicinal purposes in the form of snuff." There is no bread on the Napo; the nearest approach to flour is yuca starch. There are no clocks or watches; time is measured by the position of the sun. The mean temperature at Napo village is about one degree warmer than that of Archidona. Its altitude above the sea is 1450 feet. The nights are cool, and there are no musquitoes; but sand-flies are innumerable. Jiggers also have been seen. There are no well-defined wet and dry seasons; but the most rain falls in May, June, and July. The lightning, Edwards informed us, seldom strikes. Dysentery, fevers, and rheumatism are the prevailing diseases; and we saw one case of goître. But the climate is considered salubrious. Few twins are born; and there are fewer children than in Archidona—a difference ascribed by some to the exposure of the Napo people in gold washing; by others to the greater quantity of guayusa drunk by the Archidonians.
The Napo is the largest river in the republic. From its source in the oriental defiles of Cotopaxi and Sincholagua to its embouchure at the Marañon, its length is not far from eight hundred miles, or about twice that of the Susquehanna.[122] From Napo village to the mouth of the river our barometer showed a fall of a thousand feet. At Napo the current is six miles an hour; between Napo and Santa Rosa there are rapids; and between Santa Rosa and the Marañon the rate is not less than four miles an hour. At Napo the breadth is about forty yards; at Coca the main channel is fifteen hundred feet wide; and at Camindo it is a full Spanish mile. Below Coca the river throws out numerous canals, which, isolating portions of the forest-clad lowlands, create numerous picturesque islands. Around and between them the river winds, usually making one bend in every league. The tall trees covering them are bound together by creeping plants into a thick jungle, the home of capybaras and the lair of the jaguar. The islands, entirely alluvial, are periodically flooded, and undergo a constant round of decay and renovation. Indeed, the whole river annually changes its channel, so that navigation is somewhat difficult. The Indians, on coming to a fork, were frequently at a loss to know which was the main channel. Then, too, the river is full of snags and plaias, or low, shelving sand-banks, rising just above the water-level—the resort of turtles during the egg season. It was interesting to trace the bed of the river as we floated down; on the rapid slope of the Cordilleras rushing over or rolling along huge boulders, which farther on were rapidly reduced in size, till, in time, boulders were broken into pebbles, pebbles turned into sand, and sand reduced to impalpable mud.[123] The plaias are not auriferous. Below Coca there is a wilderness of lagunes, all connected with the river, the undisturbed retreat of innumerable water-fowl. The only spot on the Napo where the underlying rocks are exposed is near Napo village. There it is a dark slate, gently dipping east. Farther west, in fact, throughout this side of the Andes, the prevailing rock is mica-schist. But the entire Napo country is covered with an alluvial bed, on the average ten feet thick.