About eight miles below Yurimaguas, an island with extensive sand-flats occupies nearly the whole of the middle of the river. We passed to the right, and I found but a scant six feet of water. The popero said there was less on the other side; but Antonio, the Portuguese, passed there, and said there was more. He did not sound, however. We tried an experiment to ascertain the speed of the canoe at full oar, and I was surprised to find that six men could not paddle it faster than two miles the hour; ours is, however, a very heavy and clumsy canoe. We have had frequent races with Antonio and the Fiscales, and were always beaten. It was a pretty sight to see the boat of the latter, though laden with salt to the water's edge, dance by us; and, although beaten, we could not sometimes refrain (as their puntero, a tall, painted Indian, would toss his paddle in the air with a triumphant gesture as he passed) from giving a hurrah for the servants of the church.
August 29.—We met a canoe of Conibos Indians, one man and two women, from the Ucayali, going up for salt. We bought (with beads) some turtle-eggs, and proposed to buy a monkey they had; but one of the women clasped the little beast in her arms, and set up a great outcry lest the man should sell it. The man wore a long, brown, cotton gown, with a hole in the neck for the head to go through, and short, wide sleeves. He had on his arm a bracelet of monkey's teeth; and the women had white beads hanging from the septum of the nose. Their dress was a cotton petticoat tied round the waist; and all were filthy.
We are now getting into the lake country; and hence to the mouth of the Amazon, lakes of various sizes, and at irregular distances, border the rivers. They all communicate with the rivers by channels, which are commonly dry in the dry season. They are the resort of immense numbers of water-fowl, particularly cranes and cormorants; and the Indians, at the proper season, take many fish and turtles from them.
Many of these lakes are, according to the traditions of the Indians, guarded by an immense serpent, which is able to raise such a tempest in the lake as to swamp their canoes, when it immediately swallows the people. It is called in the "Lengua Inga" "Yacu Mama," or mother of the waters; and the Indians never enter a lake with which they are not familiar that they do not set up an obstreperous clamor with their horns, which the snake is said to answer; thus giving them warning of its presence.
I never saw the animal myself, but will give a description of it written by Father Manuel Castrucci de Vernazza, in an account of his mission to the Givaros and Zaparos of the river Pastaza, made in 1845:
"The wonderful nature of this animal—its figure, its size, and other circumstances—enchains attention, and causes man to reflect upon the majestic and infinite power and wisdom of the Supreme Creator. The sight alone of this monster confounds, intimidates, and infuses respect into the heart of the boldest man. He never seeks or follows the victims upon which he feeds; but, so great is the force of his inspiration, that he draws in with his breath whatever quadruped or bird may pass him, within from twenty to fifty yards of distance, according to its size. That which I killed from my canoe upon the Pastaza (with five shots of a fowling-piece) had two yards of thickness and fifteen yards of length; but the Indians of this region have assured me that there are animals of this kind here of three or four yards diameter, and from thirty to forty long. These swallow entire hogs, stags, tigers, and men, with the greatest facility; but, by the mercy of Providence, it moves and turns itself very slowly, on account of its extreme weight. When moving, it appears a thick log of wood covered with scales, and dragged slowly along the ground, leaving a track so large that men may see it at a distance and avoid its dangerous ambush."
The good father says that he observed "that the blood of this animal flowed in jets, (salia á chorros,) and in enormous abundance. The prejudice of the Indians in respect to this species of great snakes (believing it to be the devil in figure of a serpent) deprived me of the acquisition of the dried skin, though I offered a large gratification for it."
It is almost impossible to doubt a story told with this minuteness of detail. Doubtless the padre met with, and killed the boa-constrictor; but two yards of thickness is scarcely credible. He writes it dos varas de grosor. (Grosor is thickness.) I thought the father might have meant two yards in circumference, but he afterwards says that the Indians reported them of three and four yards in diameter, (de diametro.)
We had a fresh squall of wind and rain from the northward and eastward. The Portuguese, who is a careful and timid navigator, and whose motions we follow because he is a capital caterer, and has a wife along to cook for us, pulled in for the beach, and we camped for the night. The beach where we pitched belongs to an island, or rather what is an island when the river is full, though the right-hand channel is now dry; the left-hand channel runs close to the shore, and I could find but five feet water in it, though there was probably more very close to the shore, which was bold. The obstruction is narrow, and could be readily cleared away.
Seventy miles below Yurimaguas is Sta. Cruz. This is an Indian village of a tribe called Aguanos, containing three hundred and fifty inhabitants. The lieutenant governor is the only white man in it. The women go naked down to their hips, and the children entirely so. I was quite an object of curiosity and fear to them; and they seemed never tired of examining my spectacles. The pueblo is situated on an eminence, as most of the villages of this country are, to avoid inundation. It has a small stream running by it, which empties into the river at the port, and is navigable in the rainy season for loaded canoes. The convento is the most respectable-looking house on the river. It is divided into apartments; has ceilings; and is plastered, inside and out, with a white clay. There was a portico in the rear, and it looked altogether as if it had been designed and built by a person who had some taste and some idea of personal comfort.