Besides this outer outfit, an inner one is needed—of patience without stint. You will soon learn that it is one thing to plan and quite another to execute. "To get out of the inn is one half of the journey" is very appropriately a Spanish proverb. Spaniards do nothing d'appressado (in a hurry), but every thing mañana (to-morrow). You will find fondas, horses, and roads divided into the bad, the worse, and the worst, and bad is the best. But fret not thyself. "Serenity of mind," wrote Humboldt, "almost the first requisite for an undertaking in inhospitable regions, passionate love for some class of scientific labor, and a pure feeling for the enjoyment which nature in her freedom is ready to impart, are elements which, when they meet together in an individual, insure the attainment of valuable results from a great and important journey."
The journey to Quito must be made between May and November; in the rainy season the roads are impassable. From Guayaquil to Bodegas by Yankee steamer; fare, $2; time, eight hours. At Bodegas hire beasts at the Consignacion for Guaranda; price for riding and cargo beasts, $4 each. No extras for the arriero. A mule will carry two hundred and fifty pounds. Buy bread at Bodegas and Guaranda. The Indians on the road are very loth to sell any thing; buy a fowl, therefore, at the first opportunity, or you will have to live on dirty potato soup, and be glad of that. At the tambos, or wayside inns, you pay only for yerba (fodder). Never unsaddle your beast till it is cool; an Indian will even leave the bridle on for a time. To Guaranda, three full days. There take mules (safer than horses in climbing the mountains) for Quito; $6 25, silver, per beast; time, five days. Be sure to leave Guaranda by 4 a.m., for in the afternoon Chimborazo is swept by furious winds. Also start with a full stomach; you will get nothing for two days. Drink sparingly of the snow-water which dashes down the mountain. You will be tempted to curse Chuquipoyo; but thank heaven it is no worse.
There are two hotels in Quito, French and American; the former has the better location, the latter the better rooms. Best front room, furnished, half a dollar a day; cheaper by the month. Meals (two), twenty-five cents each. The beef is excellent, but the cuisine—oh, onions! "God sends the meat, and the evil one cooks." You can hire a professional male cook (Indian) for $5 a month, but you can't teach him any thing. Fish is not to be had in Quito. Gibbon speaks of having some in Cuzco, but does not tell us where it came from.[186] Price of best flour, $3 60 per quintal; butter, thirty cents a pound; beef, $1 an arroba (twenty-five pounds); refined sugar, $3 50 an arroba; brown sugar (rapidura),[187] five cents a pound; cigars, from six to sixteen for a dime; cigarettes, five cents a hundred. Horse hire, from fifty cents to $1 per day. If you are to remain some time, buy a beast: a good mule costs $40; an ordinary horse, $50. The Post-office Department is a swindle. If you "pay through" you will find on your arrival home that your letters have been paid at both ends. Ask our consul at Guayaquil to forward them.
The necessary preparations for the Napo journey have been given in a previous chapter (Chap. XI). We might add to the list a few cans of preserved milk from New York, for you will not see a drop between the Andes and the Atlantic. Fail not to take plenty of lienzo; you must have it to pay the Indians, and any surplus can be sold to advantage. A bale of thirty varas costs about five dollars. Rely not at all on game; a champion sharpshooter could not live by his rifle. Santa Rosa and Coca will be represented to you as small New Yorks; but you will do well if you can buy a chicken between them.
From Quito to Papallacta, two days and a half; riding beast, $2 silver, and $1 20 for each cargo of three arrobas. At Papallacta hire Indians for Archidona; each carries three arrobas, and wants $5 silver in advance. You take to your feet; time, nine days, including one day of rest at Baeza. At Archidona you take a new set of peons for Napo at twenty-five cents apiece; time, one day. From Napo down the river to Santa Rosa, one day. You give two and a half varas of lienzo to each Indian, and the same for the canoe. From Santa Rosa to Pebas, on the Marañon, fifteen days; cost of an Indian, twenty-five varas; ditto for a canoe. We advise you to stop at Coca and rig up a raft or craft of some kind; we ascribe our uninterrupted good health to the length and breadth of our accommodations. The Peruvian steamer from the west arrives at Pebas on the sixteenth of each month; fare to Tabatinga, $15 gold; time, four days; running time, eleven hours. Brazilian steamer leaves Tabatinga the twentieth of each month; fare to Manáos, $44 44 gold; time, five days; distance, one thousand miles. From Manáos to Pará, $55 55 gold; time, six days; distance, one thousand miles. The Brazilian steamers make semi-monthly trips. We found two hotels in Pará—the "Italiana," dear and poor; the "Diana," unpretending but comfortable. Charges at the latter for room and board, $2 a day. The best time for traveling on the Amazon is between July and December. The United States and Brazilian steamships on their homeward voyage call at Pará the seventh of each month; fare to New York, $150 gold (the same as down the whole length of the Amazon); second class, $75; time, fourteen days; distance by way of St. Thomas, 1610 + 1400 miles. Steamer for Rio the ninth of each month; fare, $125; time, twelve days; distance, 2190 miles. Fare from Rio to New York, $200. Fare by sailing vessel from Pará to New York, from $50 to $75; time, three weeks. A British steamer from Rio stops at Pará and Lisbon.
A word about health. First, take one grain of common-sense daily; do as the natives do, keep out of the noon-day sun, and make haste slowly. Secondly, take with you quinine in two-grain pills, and begin to take them before leaving New York, as the great African traveler, Du Chaillu, recommended us. As preventive against the intermittent fevers on the lowlands and rivers, nothing is better than Dr. Copeland's celebrated pills—quinine, twelve grains; camphor, twelve grains; cayenne pepper, twelve grains. Mix with mucilage, and divide into twelve pills: take one every night or morning as required. On the Amazon carry guarana. Woolen socks are recommended by those who have had much experience of tropical fevers. Never bathe when the air is moist; avoid a chill; a native will not bathe till the sun is well up. Rub yourself with aguardiente (native rum) after a bath, and always when caught in a shower. Freely exercise in Quito to ward off liver complaints. Drink little water; coffee or chocolate is better, and tea is best. Avoid spirits with fruit, and fruit after dinner. The sickliest time in Guayaquil is at the breaking up of the rainy season.
As to dangers: First, from the people. Traveling is as safe in Ecuador as in New York, and safer than in Missouri. There are no Spanish banditti, though some places, as Chambo, near Riobamba, bear a bad name. It is not wise to tempt a penniless footpad by a show of gold; but no more so in Ecuador than any where. We have traveled from Guayaquil to Damascus, but have never had occasion to use a weapon in self-defense; and only once for offense, when we threatened to demolish an Arab sheik with an umbrella. Secondly, from brutes. Some travelers would have us infer that it is impossible to stir in South America without being "affectionately entwined by a serpent, or sprung upon by a jaguar, or bitten by a rattlesnake; jiggers in every sand-heap and scorpions under every stone" (Edinburgh Review, xliii, 310). Padre Vernazza speaks of meeting a serpent two yards in diameter! But you will be disappointed at the paucity of animal life. We were two months on the Andes (August and September) before we saw a live snake. They are plentiful in the wet season in cacao plantations; but the majority are harmless. Dr. Russel, who particularly studied the reptiles of India, found that out of forty-three species which he examined not more than seven had poisonous fangs; and Sir E. Tennent, after a long residence in Ceylon, declared he had never heard of the death of an European by the bite of a snake. It is true, however, that the number and proportion of the venomous species are greater in South America than in any other part of the world; but it is some consolation to know that, zoologically, they are inferior in rank to the harmless ones; "and certainly," adds Sidney Smith, "a snake that feels fourteen or fifteen stone stamping on his tail has little time for reflection, and may be allowed to be poisonous." If bitten, apply ammonia externally immediately, and take five drops in water internally; it is an almost certain antidote. The discomforts and dangers arising from the animal creation are no greater than one would meet in traveling overland from New York to New Orleans.
Finally, of one thing the tourist in South America may be assured—that dear to him, as it is to us, will be the remembrance of those romantic rides over the Cordilleras amid the wild magnificence of nature, the adventurous walk through the primeval forest, the exciting canoe-life on the Napo, and the long, monotonous sail on the waters of the Great River.