I do not wonder at the indifference of the people to attempt to better their condition. The power of the governor to take them from their labor and send them on journeys of weeks' duration with any passing merchant or traveller, would have this effect. At this time they have furnished canoes and rowers for the priest, and a Señor Santa Maria, bound up the river; and for the governor and us, bound down; which has taken thirty-eight men out of a population of ninety. (The whole population of the town and neighborhood, reckoning women and children, is three hundred.)
The town appears to have been once in a better condition than it is now. There are remains of a garden attached to the convent, and also of instruments of husbandry and manufacture—such as rude mortars, hollowed out from the trunk of a tree, for beating (with pestles) the husk from rice, and a press for putting into shape the crude wax gathered from the hollow trees by the Indians, used by the friars "lang syne"—all now seem going to decay. The people are lazy and indifferent. They cultivate plantains sufficient to give them to eat, and yuccas enough to make masato to get drunk on; and this seems all they need. Most of their time is spent in sleeping, drinking, and dancing. Yesterday they were dancing all day, having a feast preparatory to going to work to clear ground, and make a chacra for our "Lady of something," which the priest, in his recent visit, had commanded; (the produce of this chacra is doubtless for the benefit of the church or its ministers;) and I have no doubt that the Indians will have another feast when the job is done.
The dance was a simple affair so far as figure was concerned—the women whirling round in the centre, and the men (who were also the musicians) trotting around them in a circle. The music was made by rude drums, and fifes of reed, and it was quite amusing to see the alcalde, a large, painted, grave-looking Indian, trotting round like a dog on a tread mill, with a penny whistle at his mouth. I am told that they will dance in this way as long as there is drink, if it reach to a month. I myself have heard their music—the last thing at night as I was going to bed, and the first thing in the morning as I was getting up—for days at a time. The tune never changes, and seems to be the same everywhere in the Montaña. It is a monotonous tapping of the drum, very like our naval beat to quarters.
We embarked at the Caño port, and dropped down the Caño, a mile and a half to the river. We found the river deep and winding, and running, generally, between high cliffs of a white rock. The white, however, is superficial, and seems to be imparted by age and weather. Where the action of the water had worn the white off, the rock showed dark brown, and in layers of about two feet thick, the seams running N. N. W. and S. S. E., and at an angle elevated towards the north of 45°. It is argillaceous schist, which is the character of most of the rock of this country.
We passed the mal-paso of Shapiama, and, with fifteen minutes' interval, those of Savolayacu and Cachihuanushca. In the first two the canoes were let down with ropes, and we shot the last under oar, which I was surprised at, as I had heard that it was one of the worst on the river. Malos pasos, however, which are formidable when the river is full, are comparatively safe when it is low; and vice versa. Smyth passed when the river was high—I at the opposite season; and for this reason our accounts of the rapids would vary and appear contradictory.
After passing the last we found the hills lower, the country more open, and the river wider and with a gentler flow. The average depth to-day in the smooth parts is thirty feet; current, three miles.
We passed the port of Valle on the left. A small stream enters here. The town, containing five hundred inhabitants, is six miles from the port.
About sunset we arrived at Challuayacu, a settlement of twenty houses. All the inhabitants, except those of one house, were absent. We were told that they had been disobedient in some matter to the governor of the district, and that he had come upon them with a force and carried them off prisoners to Juan Juy, a large town further down the river, where authority might be brought to bear upon them.
The village is situated in a large and fertile plain, which reaches from near the town of Valle, on the S. W., to Pachisa, on the N.; but this is not yet settled or cultivated, and, as at Sion, nothing is produced except the bare necessaries of life. Some attempt, however, had been made at improvements, for there were two small horses, in tolerable condition, wandering about among the deserted houses of the village. They eat the tops of the sugar-cane, the skin of the plantain, or almost any vegetable. They were brought from somewhere below to turn a trapiche; but everything seems abandoned now, and, there being no one to take care of the horses, I fancy the bats will soon bleed them to death.
August 16.—Lovely morning. On stepping out of the house my attention was attracted by a spider's web covering the whole of a large lemon-tree nearly. The tree was oval and well shaped; and the web was thrown over it in the most artistic manner, and with the finest effect. Broad flat cords were stretched out, like the cords of a tent, from its circumference to the neighboring bushes; and it looked as if some genius of the lamp, at the command of its master, had exhausted taste and skill to cover with this delicate drapery the rich-looking fruit beneath. I think the web would have measured full ten yards in diameter.