This made me think of breakfast, so awakening Sánchez, we sat down at the table, where the pirate-captain and most of the passengers were already beginning. The meal was execrable, being composed only of watery tea, a quantity of extremely stale bread, and some evil-smelling butter. We all munched this unpalatable fare in silence until we had eaten all we could of it, when we left the table.
During the rest of the forenoon Sánchez and I got acquainted with the other passengers. One of the officers, Lieutenant Ghiorzo, an extremely stout, dark-complexioned man, turned out to be under arrest for refusing to take part in the raid on La Unión, and was in charge of the other one, a tall, blonde, cadaverous-looking man, named Lieutenant Albarracin, who proved to be none other than the brother of the Peruvian whom we had met in Pasto, and who had given us a letter of introduction to his brother, whom he thought to be in Iquitos. Although the letter had been left in our trunks with the rest of our effects, I told the Lieutenant about it, and he was very cordial towards me during the whole trip. Ghiorzo also seemed very affable.
Another passenger was a young, copper-coloured Colombian merchant named Patrocinio Cuellar, who it appears had brought some merchandise down from Colombia for the “civilising company,” which had been lost or destroyed about the time of the raid on La Unión. He was going to the headquarters of the company at Iquitos to see if they would reimburse him. Cuellar associated, as a rule, with an individual named Bartolomé Guevara, a short, carate-covered man, to whom I took an instinctive dislike. He was a chief of section who had recently resigned his position at El Encanto, and was now en route to Spain to spend some of the money he had extracted from the tears, the bitter agony, the very life-blood of the unfortunate Indians under his control. I afterwards ascertained that he was one of the most noted of the Putumayo “missionaries.”
Another person whom I regarded with almost equal abhorrence was a copper-complexioned rascal named César Lúrquin, the Peruvian Comisario of the Putumayo. This miserable wretch was openly taking with him to Iquitos a little Huitoto girl of some seven years, presumably to sell her as a “servant,” for it is a well-known fact that this repugnant traffic in human beings is carried on, almost openly, there. His position was a sinecure, for, instead of stopping on the Putumayo, travelling about there and really making efforts to suppress crime by punishing the criminals, he contented himself with visiting the region four or five times a year—always on the company’s launches—stopping a week or so, collecting some children to sell, and then returning and making his “report.”
The remaining “first-class” passenger was a Brazilian custom-house inspector, who always travelled with the company’s launches in order to see that they did not discharge any cargo while passing through Brazilian territory. He seemed a very quiet chap, I imagine because he did not know Spanish. This gentleman spent most of his time in his hammock, for, like Sánchez and myself, he had no cabin.
Lunch and dinner were very similar to breakfast, for we had the same watery tea, the same stale bread, and the same stinking butter, the only additional dish being a repugnant preparation of codfish. The pirate-captain and his chum, the comisario, however, as I ascertained later, after eating a little of this miserable stuff, adjourned to the former’s cabin and enjoyed a magnificent spread, all by themselves.
We continued running all night, for the river was swollen and there was no necessity to follow the main channel. At about two o’clock in the afternoon we reached the mouth of the Igaraparaná, which is considerably larger than the Caraparaná and also on the left. Near the junction was a small, cleared area on the high left bank of the Putumayo, and to this we directed our course. Anchoring close to the bank, I perceived that the place was a military post, for, as soon as we approached a number of soldiers—about twenty—and two officers emerged from an old tumble-down structure that sheltered them, and came on board. They all looked ill and emaciated, and their faces and hands were done up in rags to keep off the gnats.
For over two hours we stopped here, fighting these little fiends, which swarmed about us in perfect clouds, while the pirate and the comisario related to the two lieutenants a full account of the “brilliant victory” gained at La Unión. Meanwhile, I learned that the name of the place was Arica, and that it was situated about 1° 43’ 9” south of the equator and 71° 53’ 36” west of Greenwich.
At last the enthralling tale of the “victory” was finished, and we set out up the Igaraparaná, for, it seemed, the worthy Zubiaur had been so complimented upon his bravery by the two officers that he resolved to go and inform some other friends of his up that river of the same gallant deed. We were all glad to set out in some direction, for the gnats did not trouble us much when the launch was in motion.
The Liberal continued the ascent until a late hour, when we retired. The next morning when I awoke, I perceived that we were anchored off another establishment, which I was informed by Albarracín was Santa Julia, one of the chief sections of the “civilising company” in Igaraparaná district. The two or three small huts were of split-palm with a thatched roof, while the clearing around them was small and neglected-looking. Santa Julia, Ghiorzo informed me, is the shipping-port for the section Abisinia, some twelve hours’ walk inland.