The governor treated us very civilly, and gave us a good breakfast of soup, chickens, rice, and eggs, with milk just taken from the cow. What a luxury! I saw before his door a large canoe filled with unshelled rice, of very good quality. The governor told us that rice grew very well, and gave about forty-fold in five months. He seemed a very gay and good-tempered young person, with a fine family of a wife and eleven remarkably handsome children—some born in lawful wedlock, others natural—but all cared for alike, and brought up together. I had the impertinence to ask him how he supported so many people. He said that the forest and the river yielded abundantly, and that he occasionally made an expedition to the Napo, and collected sarsaparilla enough to buy clothes and luxuries for his family in Loreto. The Napo, he says, is very full of sand-banks, and that twenty days from its mouth the men have to get overboard and drag the canoes.
The Yavari may be reached from this point by land in four days. The banks of the river at this place are steep, and about thirty feet in height above the present level. Veins of the same black clay slate that we saw at Pebas, and that burned with a bituminous smell, also crop out of the banks here.
We sailed at noon, and arrived at Peruaté at 5 p. m., (twenty miles.) The population of this village is one hundred, made up of remnants of different tribes—Ticunas, and natives of the towns of Barranca, on the upper Amazon, and Andoas, on the Pastaza. I talked with an old negro who had been many times up the Napo. He confirmed the accounts that I had from other people.
November 28.—From Peruaté to Camucheros is thirty miles. This place has only a population of four families, recently settled there, who have cleared away a small portion of the forest and commenced their plantations of yuccas, maize, and rice. Just below Camucheros we had apparently all the width of the river in view—about a mile broad. I was surprised to find, near the middle of it, only thirty feet of water. I think a sand-bank stretches out a long way from the left shore. The velocity of the current was two and a quarter miles the hour. We arrived at Moromoroté at a quarter past 6 p. m., (distance fifteen miles.)
This consists of one house of Christianized Indians. There is a house of Ticunas a mile further inland. We could hear the sound of their music, and sent them word that we wanted to buy animals and food from them. They came to see us after night, but were drunk, and had nothing to sell.
November 29.—We passed to-day a number of small islands. Between one of them and the right bank, where the river was at least a quarter of a mile wide, we saw many trees grounded, and, in what appeared the deepest part, found but twelve feet of water. Doubtless there is more in the other channels, and more might possibly be found in this.
At 9 a. m., after a journey of twenty miles, we entered the caño of Caballococha, (Horse lake.) It is about eighty yards wide, and has eighteen feet of depth in the middle. The water is clear, and makes an agreeable contrast with the muddy waters of the Amazon; but, there being no current in the caño, the water is supposed to be not so good to drink as that of the main river, which is very good when it is allowed to settle.
The village is situated on the caño, about a mile and a half from the entrance, and at the same distance from the lake. It contains two hundred and seventy-five inhabitants, mostly Ticunas Indians. These are darker than the generality of Indians of the Marañon, though not so dark as the Marubos; and they are beardless, which frees them from the negro-look that these last have. Their houses are generally plastered with mud inside, and are far neater-looking, and more comfortable, than the other Indian residences that I have seen. This is, however, entirely owing to the activity and energy of the priest, Father Flores, who seems to have them in excellent order. They are now building a church for him, which, when finished, will be the finest in the Montaña.
The men are all decently clad in frocks and trousers; and the women, besides the usual roll of cotton cloth around the loins, wear a short tunic covering the breast. I think that Father Flores, though he wants the honest simplicity and kindness of heart of Valdivia, and the noble patience, magnanimity, and gentleness of dear Father Calvo, is a better man for the Indians, and more successful in their management, than either of the others. He does not seem to care about their coming to church; for there was not an Indian at mass Sunday morning, (though the padre did give us a little homily on the importance of attending worship); but he has them afraid of him, keeps them at work, sees that they keep themselves and houses clean, and the streets of the village in order; and I saw none of the abominable drinking and dancing with which the other Indians invariably wind up the Sunday.
The town is situated on quite an extensive plain; the soil is of a light, and rather sandy character, which, even in the rainy season, quickly absorbs the water, and makes the walking always agreeable. This is very rarely the case with the other villages of the Amazon. The climate is said to be very hot; and, from the fact that the village is yet closely surrounded by the forest, which keeps off the breeze, I suspect this is the case in the dry season. I did not find it so at this time.