We could not get our boat nearer than within a quarter of a mile of the town; so we took small canoes from the bank, and carried up our equipage in them. We were hospitably received by the padres, and lodgings were given us in the convento, a large house with several rooms in it.
We found Sarayacu a rather neat-looking Indian village, of about one thousand inhabitants, including Belen, a small town of one hundred and fifty inhabitants, one and a half mile distant. It, or rather the missionary station—including the towns of Sta. Catalina and Tierra Blanca—is governed by four Franciscan friars, of the college of Ocopa. The principal and prefect, Padre Juan Chrisostomo Cimini, being now absent on a visit to Ocopa, the general direction is left in the hands of Father Vicente Calvo, assisted by the Fathers Bregati and Lorente, who have charge respectively of Sta. Catalina and Tierra Blanca.
Father Calvo, meek and humble in personal concerns, yet full of zeal and spirit for his office, clad in his long serge gown, belted with a cord, with bare feet and accurate tonsure, habitual stoop, and generally bearing upon his shoulder a beautiful and saucy bird of the parrot kind, called chiriclis, was my beau ideal of a missionary monk. He is an Arragonese, and had served as a priest in the army of Don Carlos. Bregati is a young and handsome Italian, whom Father Calvo sometimes calls St. John. Lorente was a tall, grave, and cold-looking Catalan. A lay-brother named Maquin, who did the cooking, and who was unwearied in his attentions to us, made up the establishment. I was sick here, and think that I shall ever remember with gratitude the affectionate kindness of these pious and devoted friars of St. Francis.
The town is situated on a level plain elevated one hundred feet above the rivulet of the same name, which empties into the Ucayali at three miles distant.
The rivulet does not afford sufficient water for a canoe in the dry season; but at that time a fine road might be made through the forest to the banks of the Ucayali; this probably would be miry and deep in the rainy season, which is from the first of November to Easter. We had rain nearly every day that we were there, but it was in passing showers, alternating with a hot sun. The climate of Sarayacu is delightful; the maximum thermometer, at 3 p. m., being 84½°; the minimum, at 9 a. m., 74. The average temperature of the day is 79; the nights are sufficiently cool to allow one to sleep with comfort under a musquito curtain made of gingham. These insects are less troublesome here than might be expected, which may be seen from the fact that the priests are able to live without wearing stockings; but it is a continual penance, quite equal, I should think, to self-flagellation once a week.
The soil is very prolific, but thin and light; at half a foot below the surface there is pure sand; and no Indian thinks of cultivating the same farm longer than three years; he then clears the forest and plants another. There is nothing but a little coffee produced for sale in the neighborhood of the town. The fathers extract about three hundred arrobas of sarsaparilla, from the small streams above, and sell it to Senhor Cauper in Nauta. This gives them a profit of about five hundred dollars. The College at Ocopa allows them a dollar for every mass said or sung. The four padres are able to perform about seven hundred annually, (those for Sundays and feast-days are not paid for;) and this income of twelve hundred dollars is appropriated to the repairs of the churches and conventos, church furniture, the vestments of the priests, their table and chamber furniture, and some little luxuries—such as sugar, flower, vinegar, &c., bought of the Portuguese below.
The padres have recently obtained an order from the prefect of the department of Amazonas, giving them the exclusive right of collecting sarsaparilla on the Ucayali and its tributaries; but I doubt if this will benefit them much, for, there being no power to enforce the decree, the Portuguese will send their agents there as before.
Each padre has two Mitayos, appointed monthly—one a hunter, the other a fisherman—to supply his table with the products of the forest and the river. The Fiscales cultivate him a small farm for his yuccas and plantains, and he himself raises poultry and eggs; they also make him rum from the sugar-cane, of which he needs a large supply to give to the constables, (Varayos, from "vara," a wand, each one carrying a cane,) the Fiscales, and the Mitayos.
The government is paternal. The Indians recognise in the padre the power to appoint and remove curacas, captains, and other officers; to inflict stripes; and to confine in the stocks. They obey the priest's orders readily, and seem tractable and docile. They take advantage, however, of Father Calvo's good nature, and are sometimes a little insolent. On an occasion of this kind, my friend Ijurra, who is always an advocate of strong measures, and says that in the government of the Indians there is nothing like the santo palo, (sacred cudgel,) asked Father Calvo why he did not put the impudent rascal in the stocks. But the good Father replied that he did not like to do it—that it was cruel, and hurt the poor fellow's legs.
The Indians here, as elsewhere, are drunken and lazy. The women do most of the work; carry most of the burdens to and from the chacras and canoes; make the masato, and the earthen vessels out of which it is drunk; spin the cotton and weave the cloth; cook and take care of the children. And their reward is to be maltreated by their husbands, and, in their drunken frolics, to be cruelly beaten, and sometimes badly wounded.