September 27.—Two of our turtles died yesterday, and the Indians are eating them to-day. Ijurra suspects that they killed them by putting tobacco in their mouths, knowing that we would not eat them, and that they consequently would get them. But Ijurra is of a suspicious nature, especially where Indians are concerned, whom he thinks to be the vilest and most worthless of mankind. We found the current to-day to be two miles the hour. A fish about two feet long, and sharp-built, like a dolphin, jumped into the boat. It had two curved and very sharp teeth, like those of a squirrel, or the fangs of a serpent, in the lower jaw. It made us a very good mess. The river to-day is much divided by islands, the passages from one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards wide. When running between the main shore, the river is about a quarter of a mile wide.
September 28.—Passed the outlet of a lake said to be a day distant. There are many lakes on each side of the river, where the Indians fish with barbasco. At this season most of the outlets are dry. Passed two balsas loaded with sarsaparilla, gathered in the river Aguaytia, above Sarayacu. One was in charge of a Brazilian negro, the other of a Portuguese; they were dependants of a trading establishment at Loreto. The crew were Conibos Indians of the Ucayali. They had a floating turtle-pen along, and gave us a turtle. When we stopped to breakfast our people hid their jars, which they had emptied of their masata, to pick up on the return. Banks of the river, as usual, about ten or fifteen feet high. Beaches few and small, running out in ridges; so that at one moment our men could not touch bottom with their long poles, and at the next the boat was aground.
September 29.—We passed a place in the river where there was a beach on each side, and a tree grounded in the middle. On the side which we passed, which was to the right of the tree, we had but four feet water sixty yards from the beach. I suspect the tree was grounded on a sand-flat at the upper end of an island, the lower end of which we had not noticed, and that the channel was on the other side, and close to the right bank of the river. Passed the mouth of the Caño Pucati, which communicates with the Marañon just below San Regis. It is now entirely dry, and appears a mere fissure in the bank between the cane and small trees growing near it. The sand which is heaped up at its entrance, is four feet above the present level of the river.
Stopped and bought some turtle, salt, and salted curassows, (a large, black, game bird, nearly the size, and with something the appearance, of a turkey, called piuri,) from some San Regis people, who were salting fish, which they had taken in a lake near. Their ranchos were built upon a bluff on the right bank. I could not stay among them for the musquitoes, and had to retreat to the boat. Two large turtles, three salted birds, and half a peck of salt, cost us six strings of small beads.
September 30.—Passed the mouth of an arm of the river, which is said to leave the main river many miles above, and make the large island of Paynaco. It is navigable for canoes in the wet season; but, on account of its windings, it takes nearly as long to pass it as it does to pass the main river; and it is seldom navigated. We see many cranes and huananas, (the Egyptian goose before described,) but no animals except flesh colored porpoises, of which there are a great many. Occasionally we hear "cotomonos," or howling monkeys, in the woods. Dull work ascending the river; anchored near low sand islands with abrupt banks, which were continually tumbling into the stream.
October 1.—After daylight we landed and shot at cotomonos. One is not aware of the great height of the trees until he attempts to shoot a monkey or a bird out of the topmost branches. He is then surprised to find that the object is entirely out of reach of his fowling-piece, and that only a rifle will reach it. The trees throughout this country grow with great rapidity, and, being in a light, thin soil, with a substratum of sand, the roots are superficial, and the trees are continually falling down. Nature seems to have made a provision for their support, for, instead of coming down round to the ground, the trunk, about ten feet above it, divides into thick, wide tablets, which, widening as they come down, stand out like buttresses for the support of the tree; but even with this provision no day passes that we do not hear the crashing fall of some giant of the forest. Re-stowed the boat, and repaired Ijurra's palace, making it narrower and higher.
October 3.—Many huananas, with their broods, upon the river. Shot a large brown bird called chansu, (cigana in Brazil;) it has a crest, erectile at pleasure, and looks like a pheasant. Large flocks frequent the cane on the banks of the river; they have a very game look, and are attractive to the sportsman; but the Indians call them a foul bird, and do not eat them; the crop of this was filled with green herbage.
October 4.—Clear all night, with heavy dew. The anchor, which is a sixty-four pound weight, had sunk so deep in the thick dark sand of the bottom as to require the united exertions of all hands to get it. Met three canoes going down loaded with sarsaparilla; bought some yuccas and plantains at a settlement of five families of Conibos, on the left bank of the river. Got also specimens of the black wax of the country, and "lacre," or sealing-wax, which is the gum of a tree, colored red with achote. The black wax is the production of a small bee very little larger than an ant, which builds its house in the ground. The white wax is deposited in the branches of a small tree, which are hollow, and divided into compartments like the joints of a cane. The wood is sufficiently soft to be perforated by the bee; the tree is called cetica, and looks, though larger, like our alder bush.
October 5.—Stopped at a Conibo rancho on the right bank. Three men and six women, with children, were living in the rancho; they were very poor, and could sell us nothing. The river rose six inches from eight last night to five this morning. Shores to-day low, with large sand beaches; only four feet of water fifty or sixty yards from them. Current two and a quarter miles.
October 6.—Passed a settlement of Conibos on left bank—four houses, eight men and twenty-five women and children. It was quite a treat to see so familiar a flower as the convolvulus growing on the bank. It was not so large or so gay as in our gardens, but had a home look that was very pleasing. Passed a ravine, up which there is a settlement of Amajuacas Indians. These men are hunters, who live in the interior, and seldom come down upon the rivers. The Pirros and Conibos sometimes make war upon them, and bring away captives. Yesterday two men—one a Pano, from Sarayacu, and the other an Amajuaca—joined us to work their passage to Sarayacu. The Amajuaca was so good a fellow, and worked so well, that I paid him as the others. Current two and a quarter miles.