We bought at this place two of the great cranes of the river, called Tuyuyú. These were gray. A pair that I succeeded in getting to the United States were white. Started at 4 a. m.; high white chalky banks just below Pucallpa. At nine we arrived at the mouth of the Napo; we found it two hundred yards broad, and of a gentle current. The soundings across the mouth were thirty-five and forty feet; stopped at Chorococha, a settlement of eighteen inhabitants, just below the mouth of the Napo. We found some of our Nauta friends here salting fish, and got a capital breakfast from them. After leaving, we anchored near the head of a small island, where I supposed we would feel the effect of the current of the Napo; but had but a mile and two-thirds current.
November 9.—We started at 5, and arrived at Pebas at 10 a. m. We found that the people of Pebas, under the direction of Father Valdivia, (my Nauta friend,) were establishing a new town about a quarter of a mile up a stream called Ambiyacu, which enters into the Amazon two miles above Pebas. We pulled up this stream, and found the good priest and the governor general busy in directing the felling of trees and building of houses. I determined to stay here for some time, for I was now getting so weak that I could scarcely climb the banks upon which the towns are situated. Father Valdivia received us with great cordiality, and gave us quarters in a new house he was building for himself.
The new settlement had not yet a name; Ijurra wished it called Echenique, after the new president; while I insisted on "Ambiyacu," as being Indian and sonorous. The population already numbered three hundred and twenty-eight—almost all the people of Pebas having come over. The inhabitants are principally Oregones, or Big Ears, from the custom of introducing a bit of wood into a slit in the ear and gradually increasing the size of it until the lobe hangs upon the shoulder. They have, however, now discontinued the custom, and I saw only a few old people thus deformed.
They are fishermen, and serve as peons; but their condition seems better than that of the inhabitants of the other towns on the river, which is doubtless owing to the presence and exertions of the good priest, who is very active and intelligent.
Visited Pebas in the afternoon. We found it nearly abandoned and overgrown with grass and weeds. We saw some cattle roving about among the houses, which were fat, and otherwise in good condition. The town is situated immediately on the banks of the river, which is here unbroken by islands, three-quarters of a mile broad, and apparently deep and rapid. We carried over to the new town specimens of black clay slate that crops out in narrow veins on the banks, and made a fire of it, which burned all night, with a strong bituminous smell.
November 10.—I gave Arebalo the message sent him by Padre Calvo, which was a request that he would send the Sarayacu men back in the larger canoe that we had brought down for that purpose. He, however, was careless in the matter, and two of them went up the river with a trader, and one down. The others started back in the canoe; but much to my surprise, and even regret, I found in the evening that they had returned, turned over their canoe, sold their pots and other utensils to Arebalo, and expressed their determination to go down the stream. They said that if I would not take them they would go with anybody that would. I of course was glad to have them, and I quieted my conscience in thus robbing Father Calvo by the reflection that if they went with me to the end of my voyage, I could give them my boat and fit them out for the return; whereas, if they separated, they might never go back. I think that Arebalo winked at their conduct in returning, because he and the padre were busy with their new town, and did not wish to furnish me with men of their own. But I think we are all culpable. The peons were culpable for not going back; I was culpable for taking them further; and Arebalo was culpable for permitting it; and thus it is that the population of Sarayacu diminishes, and the friars are cheated out of the hard earned fruits of their labor.
November 15.—Ijurra and I went with the padre to visit his mission of San José of the Yaguas. This is a settlement of Yaguas Indians, of two hundred and sixty inhabitants, about ten miles in a N. E. direction from Ambiyacu, or (as I find by a letter received from Ijurra since my return home) from Echenique.
San José is reached by a path through the woods over a rather broken country. There were two or three rivulets to pass on the road, which have pebbly beds, with black slate rock cropping out of the sides of the ravine—the first stones I have seen since leaving the Pongo of Chasuta. The soil is dark clay, and deeper than I have seen it elsewhere on the river. Birds of a brilliant plumage occasionally flitted across our path, and the woods were fragrant with aromatic odors.
The Yaguas received their priest in procession, with ringing of the church bell and music of drums. They conducted him, under little arches of palm branches stuck in the path, to the convento, and politely left us to rest after the fatigue of the walk. These are the most thorough-looking savages in their general appearance and costume, though without anything savage in the expression of their countenances, which is vacant and stupid. Their ordinary dress consists of a girdle of bark around the loins, with a bunch of fibres of another kind of bark, looking like a swab or mop, about a foot in length, hanging down from the girdle in front and rear. Similar, but smaller bunches, are hung around the neck and arms by a collar and bracelets of small beads. This is the every-day costume. On festivals they stain all their bodies a light brown, and on this ground they execute fantastic devices in red and blue. Long tail-feathers of the macaw are stuck in the armlets, reaching above the shoulders, and a chaplet, made of white feathers from the wings of a smaller bird, is worn around the head. This generally completes the costume, though I did see one dandy who had stuck short white feathers all over his face, leaving only the eyes, nose, and mouth exposed.
The curaca, and some one or two of the Varayos, wore frocks and trousers; but I was told they had the national costume underneath these. The dress of the women is a yard or two of cotton cloth rolled around the hips. They are strong people for drinking and dancing, and hate work.