The river opposite Challuayacu is one hundred yards broad, shallow and rapid. A few miles below, it spreads out to one hundred and fifty yards; and in what seemed mid-channel, there was but six feet water, with a bottom of fine sand, and a current of four miles the hour. Hills on the right, but retiring from the shores; a perfect plain, covered with trees, bushes, and wild cane, on the left.
At noon we arrived at the mouth of the Huayabamba, which is one hundred yards wide, has six feet water, and a beautiful pebbly bottom. A quarter of an hour's drag of the canoe along the right bank brought us to the village of Lupuna, the port of Pachiza. It contains fifteen houses and about seventy-five inhabitants. A little rice is grown; but the staple production is cotton, which seemed to be abundant. This may be called a manufacturing place; for almost every woman was engaged in spinning, and many balls of cotton-thread were hanging from the rafters of each house. A woman, spinning with diligence all day, will make four of these balls. These weigh a pound, and are worth twenty-five cents. They are very generally used as currency, there being little money in the country. I saw some English prints, which were worth thirty-seven and a half cents the yard; (cost in Lima twelve and a half;) they come either by the way of Huanuco, or across the country, by Truxillo, Chachapoyas, and Moyobamba; and are paid for in hats, wax, or these balls of cotton.
We had a visit from the governor of Pachiza, which town is situated on the right bank of the river, three miles above Lupuna. I asked him why he had carried away prisoners nearly all the population of Challuayacu. He merely said that they had been rebellious, and resisted his authority, and therefore he had taken them to Juan Juy, where they could be secured and punished. I thought it a pity that a thriving settlement should be broken up, very probably on account of some personal quarrel.
The district comprises the pueblos of Pachiza, of eighty matrimonios; Valle, eighty; Huicunga, thirty; Sion, thirty; Archiras, sixteen; Lupuna, fifteen; Shepti, twelve; Bijao, four; and Challuayacu, three. The number of souls in a village, proportionate to the number of matrimonios, or married couples, is generally estimated at five for one. This would give the population of the district thirteen hundred and fifty. The people are indolent and careless; and although there could not well be a finer or more productive country than all this district, yet they barely exist.
After we had retired to our mats beneath the shed for the night, I asked the governor if he knew a bird called El alma perdida. He did not know it by that name, and requested a description. I whistled an imitation of its notes; whereupon, an old crone, stretched on a mat near us, commenced, with animated tones and gestures, a story in the Inca language, which, translated, ran somehow thus:
An Indian and his wife went out from the village to work their chacra, carrying their infant with them. The woman went to the spring to get water, leaving the man in charge of the child, with many cautions to take good care of it. When she arrived at the spring she found it dried up, and went further to look for another. The husband, alarmed at her long absence, left the child and went in search. When they returned the child was gone; and to their repeated cries, as they wandered through the woods in search, they could get no response save the wailing cry of this little bird, heard for the first time, whose notes their anxious and excited imagination "syllabled" into pa-pa, ma-ma, (the present Quichua name of the bird.) I suppose the Spaniards heard this story, and, with that religious poetic turn of thought which seems peculiar to this people, called the bird "The lost soul."
The circumstances under which the story was told—the beautiful still, starlight night—the deep, dark forest around—the faint-red glimmering of the fire, flickering upon the old woman's gray hair and earnest face as she poured forth the guttural tones of the language of a people now passed away—gave it a sufficiently romantic interest to an imaginative man. The old woman was a small romance in herself. I had looked at her with interest as she cooked our supper. She wore a costume that is sometimes, though not often, seen in this country. The body, or upper part of the dress, which was black, consisted of two parts—one coming up from the waist behind and covering the back, the other in front, covering the breast; the two tied together over each shoulder with strings, leaving her lank sides and long skinny arms perfectly bare.
August 17.—We procured a canoe sufficiently large to carry all our baggage, (we had hitherto had two,) with eight peons. We found hills now on both sides of the river, which a little below Lupuna has one hundred and twenty yards of breadth and thirty feet of depth. We passed a small raft, with a house built of cane and palm upon it, containing an image of the Virgin, which was bound up the river seeking contributions. The people buy a step towards Heaven in this way with their little balls of cotton.
We passed abreast of Juan Juy; but, a long island intervening, we did not see it. It is a large village of five hundred inhabitants; it is situated in a plain, a great part of which is overflowed by the river at the full; and much rice is cultivated there. I have met with the rice of Juan Juy everywhere on the river. Soon after we passed the mouth of the river Sapo, which is fifty yards broad, and muddy; navigable for large canoes for twenty miles to the town of Saposoa, which contains one thousand inhabitants, and is the capital of the comparatively populous district of that name.
The Huallaga, which for some miles above this has but six feet of water, at this place has eighteen; but it soon diminishes to six again.