After passing the Pongo, we entered upon a low, flat country, where the river spreads out very wide, and is obstructed by islands and sand-banks. This is the deposit from the Pongo. In the channel where we passed, I found a scant five feet of water; I suspect, but I could not find out, that more water may be had in some of the other channels. This shoal water is but for a short distance, and the soundings soon deepened to twelve and eighteen feet. Small pebbly islands are forming in the river, and much drift-wood from above lodges on them. After having stopped two hours to breakfast, we passed the mouth of the Chipurana, which is about twenty yards wide.
This river flows from the Pampa del Sacramento, and affords, when it is full, a canoe navigation of about forty miles, taking four days to accomplish it, on account of shoals and fallen trees. This distance brings the traveller to the port of Yanayacu, where, in 1835, when Lieutenant Smyth travelled this route, there was one hut; there is not one now. A walk over a plain for twenty-five miles reaches the village of Sta. Catalina, which then had thirty families; now one hundred and sixty inhabitants; so that it has changed very little in all this time. Embarking at Sta. Catalina, on the river of the same name, the traveller, in two days of a very difficult and interrupted navigation, enters the Ucayali; ascending which stream a day and a half, he arrives at Sarayacu.
I was desirous of going to Sarayacu by this route, but the river would not, at this season, afford sufficient water for my canoes to reach Yanayacu, and I moreover did not like to miss the lower part of the Huallaga.
River now two hundred yards wide, free from obstruction, with a gentle current, and between eighteen and twenty-four feet of depth. We saw turtle-tracks in the sand to-day for the first time; camped on the beach.
August 27.—Saw flesh-colored porpoises; also a small seal, which looked like a fur-seal; got turtle-eggs. The turtles crawl out upon the beach during the night, deposit their eggs, and retreat before dawn, leaving, however, broad tracks in the sand, by which their deposits are discovered. We must have got upwards of a thousand; I counted one hundred and fifty taken from one hole. Since we have passed the Pongo we have encountered no stones; the beaches are all of sand.
August 28.—Arrived at Yurimaguas. This little village, situated upon a hill immediately upon the banks of the river, and numbering two hundred and fifty inhabitants, now appears almost entirely deserted. We could procure neither peons nor canoes. The men were away in the forest collecting wax for a fiesta, ordered by the curate; and the sub-prefect of the province, who had been gold-hunting up the Santiago, had taken all the canoes up the Cachiyacu with him on his return to Moyobamba. I was told that his expedition for gold up the Santiago, which consisted of a force of eighty armed men, had been a failure; that they got no gold, and had lost five of their company by the attacks of the Huambisas and other savages of the Santiago. This may not be true. The sub-prefect (I was told) said that the expedition had accomplished its purpose, which was simply to open friendly communications with the savages, with a view to further operations.
With great difficulty, and by paying double, I persuaded our Chasutinos to take us on to Sta. Cruz, where I was assured I could be accommodated both with boats and men. We could buy nothing at Yurimaguas but a few bunches of plantains and some salt fish out of a passing boat.
An island divides the river three-fourths of a mile above Yurimaguas. The southern branch is the channel; the northern one is closed at its lower end by a sand-bank opposite the village.
We left Yurimaguas after breakfasting. Half a mile below the village is the mouth of the Cachiyacu. This river is the general route between Moyobamba and the ports of the Amazon. It is navigable for large canoes, when full, (which is from January to June,) as far as Balza Puerto, a considerable village, five days' journey from Moyobamba. It takes nine days for a loaded canoe to ascend as far as Balza Puerto. Lieutenant Maw descended this river in 1827. Communication is also had by the Cachiyacu with many villages situated in the fine country between the Marañon and Huallaga rivers: so that Yurimaguas, situated at the mouth of this river, and having open communication with the Atlantic, may be considered as occupying an important position in any scheme for navigation and trade.
We met several canoes going up the river for salt; canoes passing each other on the river speak at a great distance apart. The Indians use a sing-song tone, that is heard and understood very far, without seeming to call for much exertion of the voice. Every year at this season the Indians of the Marañon and Ucayali make a voyage up the Huallaga for their supply of salt. They travel slowly, and support themselves by hunting, fishing, and robbing plantain patches on their way.