October 7.—River half a mile wide and rising fast. Trunks of trees begin to come down. Stopped at a settlement called Guanache. I saw only two houses, with four or five men and women; they said that the others were away gathering sarsaparilla. These people cannot count, and can never get from them any accurate idea of numbers. They are very little removed above the "beasts that perish." They are filthy, and covered with the sores and scars of sarna. The houses were very large, measuring between thirty and forty feet of length, and ten or fifteen in breadth. They consist of immense roofs of small poles and cane, thatched with palm, and supported by short stakes four feet high and three inches in diameter, planted in the ground three or four feet apart, and having the spaces, except between two in front, filled in with cane. Many persons "pig" together in one of these houses. Cotton was growing here. Current three and one-third miles.
October 9.—Stopped at the village of Sta. Maria, a Pirros settlement, on the left bank, of one hundred and fifty souls. The curaca, who seemed a more rational and respectable being than the rest, and whom I afterwards saw in Nauta, told me that there were thirty-three Matrimonios. These Indians ascend the Ucayali in their canoes to a point not very far from Cuzco, where they go to exchange rare birds and animals for beads, fish-hooks, and the little silver ornaments which they wear in their noses. They bury their dead in his canoe under the floor of his house. The curaca said that the Conibos buried the personal effects of the deceased with him, differing in this from his people, the Pirros. Their language is also different; but in all other things they are as like as peas. They have no idea of a future state, and worship nothing. In fact, I think they have no ideas at all, although they can make a bow or a canoe, and take a fish; and their women can weave a coarse cloth from cotton, and dye it. They asked us if we had not in our boxes some great and infectious disease, which we could take up and let loose among their enemies, the Cashibos of the Pichitea.
There were two Moyobambinos domiciliated in the village, purchasing salt fish from the Indians. One of them told me that an Indian would furnish eighty pieces of salt fish for eight yards of tocuyo; this man may have "let the cat out of the bag," and showed me how they cheat the Indians. A yard of tocuyo is the general price of three pieces. A fish called payshi, which is the fish ordinarily salted, was brought in and cut up whilst we were here. It is a powerful fish, about six feet long and one and one-fourth in diameter. The head is fourteen inches long, with short jaws and rather small month. The tongue, when dried, is as hard as bone, and is commonally used as a rasp. The scales of the belly and tail are bordered with a bright red streak, which makes the fish appear to be nearly encircled with a number of scarlet rings, and gives it a very pretty appearance. (It is called pirarucu in Brazil.)
Just below Sta. Maria is the mouth of a creek, or small channel of the river, which, cutting across a narrow neck of land, connects two parts of a great bend of the river. These canals across an isthmus are called by the Indians tepishka. This one is only navigable when the river is full.
Two hours after leaving Sta. Maria we arrived at a beach where there was an establishment of Senhor Cauper's, for salting fish. These establishments are called factorias. A nephew of the old man has been here for two months, attending to the business. Instead of employing the Infidels, he brings Indians of Nauta with him—people generally who are in Mr. Cauper's debt. Twenty-five Indians collect and salt four thousand pieces of fish in six weeks.
Bought fifty pieces at six and a quarter cents for the support of my peons. From eight last night to six this morning, the river rose but two inches, and seems to be now falling.
The Indians on this river have in their houses cotton, maize, ground peas, (mani,) sweet potatoes, yuccas, plantains, fowls and fish, bows and arrows, lances, clubs, paddles, and pretty baskets made of cane. The women weave their own clothes, and those of their husbands, and manage to paint figures and devices on the cotton after it is woven. The Pirros and Conibos seem taller than they really are, on account of their costume, which is a long cotton gown. I have seen a fellow in one of these gowns, slowly striding over a beach, look, at a distance, like a Roman patrician in his "toga."
October 10.—River fell last night four inches. Stopped on Puiri island to breakfast. There is a pretty little lake occupying nearly the whole centre of the island. We passed through a shallow and narrow arm of the river between Puiri island and the right bank. River a quarter of a mile wide above the island.
Met a Conibo, with his wife and two children, on the beach. This man was evidently the dandy of his tribe. He was painted with a broad stripe of red under each eye; three narrow stripes of blue were carried from one ear, across the upper lip, to the other—the two lower stripes plain, and the upper one bordered with figures. The whole of the lower jaw and chin were painted with a blue chain-work of figures, something resembling Chinese figures. Around his neck was a broad tight necklace of black and white beads, with a breastplate of the same hanging from it, and partly concealed by the long gown, or cushma. His wrists were also adorned with wide bracelets of white beads, and above these a bracelet of lizard skins, set round with monkeys' teeth. He wore a little silver shield hanging from his nose, and a narrow, thin plate of silver, shaped like a paddle, two and a half inches long, thrust through a hole in the lower lip, and hanging on the chin. He had been to Cuzco, where he got his silver ornaments, and said it was a journey of four moons. We anchored in thirty-six feet water, and found a current of three miles the hour. Calm, clear night; much dew.
October 11.—Stopped to breakfast on a beach on the left bank, back of which, on the firm land, were two houses of Remos Indians. There were twenty-two of them—men, women, and children—with three men of the Shipebos tribe. There seemed to be no uniformity in their paint, each one consulting his own taste; though there was one man and a woman, whom I understood to be man and wife, painted exactly alike. The Remos were low and small; the Shipebos taller. They were dressed in the common costume of the Ucayali, (the cushma,) and had their hair cut straight across the forehead, just above the eyes, so as to show the face, set, as it were, in a frame of hair. They are all filthy, and some have sarna. As far as I have observed, more women have this disease than men. Passed more huts afterwards, and some Indians seeking the young of the turtle on a beach. These people eat anything. I have known them to eat the eggs of the turtle with the young in them, and also turtle that had died a natural death and had become offensive.