People in Huanuco are fully alive to the importance of opening the navigation of the Huallaga to their city. They speak of it as a thing that would be of incalculable advantage to them; and their leaders and influential men have often urged them to be up and doing. But, although they cannot be stirred up to the undertaking themselves, they are jealous of the attempt by any other route. I had a visit this evening from my Cerro Pasco acquaintance, the Intendente of Pozuzu. The old gentleman discoursed long and earnestly about his route from the Cerro to Pozuzu, and thence to Mayro. When he went away, Colonel Lucar asked me what I called that science in my country that put people to sleep; and when I told him that it was animal magnetism, he said that that old man was a capital magnetiser, for he had been to sleep an hour. I think there was some jealousy in this.
Rice, tobacco, and straw hats, in small quantities, are now brought on the backs of Indians from the towns on the Huallaga to Huanuco.
Colonel Lucar showed me his "cuarto de habios," or room where he keeps all his horse furniture. He has at least a dozen saddles of various patterns, with bridles, pillons, horse-cloths, holsters, and everything complete. Most of the bridles and stirrups are heavily plated with silver. People take great care of their horses in this country, and are generally good horsemen. There are one or two carriages and gigs in Huanuco, made in England.
I sold my mules to the Colonel for half that I had given for them, with the condition that we should ride them as far as practicable and send them back by the arriero. The old gentleman agreed to it, though rather reluctantly. He said that some fifteen years ago, a countryman of mine, and calling himself an officer of the navy also, had sold him his mules for pistols and fowling-pieces, on the same terms; but when he arrived at the end of his journey, he sold the mules again, and went off with the proceeds. The Colonel could not give me the name of this honest individual. I afterwards ascertained that he was not an American, but a German.
July 22.—Much to my annoyance our servant Mauricio deserted this morning. Ijurra accuses me of having spoiled him by indulgence; and I, on the other hand, think that he had disgusted him by tyranny. I imagine he went back to Lima with Castillo, a young man who had been governor of the district of Tarapoto, on the Huallaga, and who was going to Lima with stuffed birds' skins to sell. This was an intelligent young man, who gave me information about the Montaña. He said I would be amply protected in my contemplated voyage up the Ucayali with twenty-five Chasutinos, (Indians of Chasuta,) for they were a brave and hardy people; but that the Cocamas and Cocamillos, from about the mouth of the river, were great cowards, and would desert me on the first appearance of the savages—that they had so treated him. I rather suspect that the reason for Don Mauricio's shabby behavior was, that we were getting into his own country, and that he had private reasons for desiring to avoid a visit home. He had asked me at Tarma to let him go with Gibbon.
Our arriero made his appearance at noon, instead of early in the morning, as he had promised; but we are now getting used to this. We did not ride our own mules, as they were sick and not in condition to travel, and the arriero supplied us with others. I got a horse, but did not derive much benefit from the exchange. Our course lay down the valley N. E., crossing the river soon after leaving the town by a rude bridge floored with the leaves of the maguey. We found the road good, but rocky, principally with the debris of quartz. Gold is occasionally found, but in small quantities, in the mountains bordering this valley. At six miles from Huanuco we passed the village of Sta. Maria del Valle, of three hundred inhabitants. We stopped and took some fruit and pisco with the curate, to whom also I had a letter from Lima.
Every traveller in this country should provide himself with letters of introduction. People, it is true, will receive him without them, but do not use that cordial and welcome manner which is so agreeable.
The cura had some fifty or sixty new and well-bound books on shelves, and seemed a man superior to the generality of his class. He said that Valle was a poor place, producing only sugar-cane, which the inhabitants put to no other use than to make huarapo to drink; and that, if it were not for the neighborhood of Huanuco, he thought that he should starve. Huarapo is the fermented juice of the cane, and is a very pleasant drink of a hot day.
We saw a few sheep and goats after leaving the village. The trees were principally willow and fruit-trees, with here and there a cotton tree, bearing indifferent staple. The mountains on the left, or Huanuco side, send down spurs towards the river, between which are pretty little valleys, not deep and narrow, but spread out like a fan. In each one of these there is situated a small village or a hacienda, presenting, with its fields of cane and alfalfa, and, higher up, wheat, a very pretty appearance. It is not so on the right bank. The small streams that flow into the river from this side come down rugged ravines, with sides of soft rock and white earth, and are generally very muddy. We stopped two miles beyond Valle at a hacienda called Chullqui, and slept in an Indian hut with several other people, one a sick woman with a child two days old. Height of Chullqui, by B. P., five thousand six hundred and twenty-six feet above the level of the sea.
July 23.—Course still N. E. along the banks of the Huallaga. Trees principally small acacias. At six miles from Chullqui we crossed the river, turned to the north, and ascended a ravine (down which flowed a small stream) to the village of Acomayo. The river continues its course to the northward and eastward and sweeps around the base of the hills, which form (going up) the right-hand side of the Quebrada, up which we were travelling. The road which we had left, continuing along the banks of the river, leads to Panao, Muña, and Pozuzu; Smyth's route to the Pachitea.