We talked so much about tigers and their carrying off people whilst asleep, that I, after going to bed, became nervous; and every sound near the shed made me grasp the handles of my pistols. After midnight I was lulled to sleep by the melancholy notes of a bird that Lieutenant Smyth calls "Alma Perdida," or lost soul. Its wild and wailing cry from the depths of the forest seemed, indeed, as sad and despairing as that of one without hope.
August 11.—Ijurra went to Lamasillo to pay the boatmen, some of them having come down to the port to carry up the cotton cloth. This left me entirely alone. The sense of loneliness, and the perfect stillness of the great forest, caused me to realize in all its force the truth of Campbell's fine line—
"The solitude of earth that overawes."
It was strange, when the scratch of my pen on the paper ceased, to hear absolutely no sound. I felt so much the want of society, that I tried to make a friend of the lithe, cunning-looking lizard that ran along the canoe at my side, and that now and then stopped, raised up his head, and looked at me, seemingly in wonder.
I could see no traces of the height of the river in the crecido, or full; but, from a mark pointed out by one of the Indians, I judged that the river has here a perpendicular rise and fall of thirty feet. He represents it at a foot in depth at high water on the hill upon which we now are, and its borders at three-fourths of a mile inland. Smyth speaks of the river having fallen ten feet in a single night.
The hill on which the port of Tocache is situated, is about thirty feet above the present level of the river, and by boiling point is one thousand five hundred and seventy-nine feet above the level of the sea.
A canoe arrived from Juan Juy, and a party of two from Saposoa by land. These are towns further down the river. Each party had its pitakas, (hide trunks,) containing straw hats, rice, tobacco, and tocuyo listado, a striped cotton cloth, much used in Huanuco for "tickings." It is astonishing to see how far this generally lazy people will travel for a dollar.
August 18.—Had a visit from the governor last night. He is a little, bare-footed Mestizo, dressed in the short frock and trousers of the Indians. He seemed disposed to do all in his power to facilitate us and forward us on our journey. I asked him about the tigers. He said he had known three instances of their having attacked men in the night; two of them were much injured, and one died.
Our boatmen made their appearance at 10 a. m., accompanied by their wives, bringing masato for the voyage. The women carry their children (lashed flat on the back to a frame of reeds) by a strap around the brow, as they do any other burden. The urchins look comfortable and contented, and for all the world like young monkeys.
The Indians of this district are Ibitos. They are less civilized than the Cholones of Tingo Maria, and are the first whose faces I have seen regularly painted. They seem to have no fixed pattern, but each man paints according to his fancy; using, however, only two colors—the blue of Huitoc and the red "Achote."