CHAPTER XI.
Upper Ucayali—M. Castelnau—Length of navigation—Loss of the priest—Departure from Sarayacu—Omaguas—Iquitos—Mouth of the Napo—Pebas—San José de los Yaguas—State of Indians of Peru.
I have the less regret, however, in that M. Castelnau has given so exact and interesting an account of the descent of this river.
This accomplished traveller and naturalist left Cuzco on the 21st July, 1846. His party consisted of himself, M. D'Osery, M. Deville, M. Saint Cric, (who joined the party in the valley of Sta. Ana,) three officers of the Peruvian navy, seven or eight domestics and muleteers, and fifteen soldiers as an escort. After seven days of travel (passing a range of the Andes at an elevation of fourteen thousand eight hundred feet) he arrived at the village of Echaraté, in the valley of Sta. Ana.
He remained at this place until the 14th of August, when the canoes and rafts which he had ordered to be constructed were ready. He then embarked on a river called by the various names of Vilcanota, Yucay, Vilcomayo, and Urubamba, in four canoes and two balsas.
The difficulties of the navigation, dissensions with the Peruvian officers, and desertions of the peons, soon reduced the expedition to a lamentable state of weakness and destitution.
On the 17th M. D'Osery was sent back with a large part of the equipage, and most of the instruments and collections in natural history. This unfortunate gentleman was murdered by his guides on his route from Lima to rejoin M. Castelnau on the Amazon. After passing innumerable cascades and rapids, M. Castelnau reached, on the 27th of August, the lowest rapid on the river, that is an effectual bar to navigation. This is one hundred and eighty miles from his point of embarkation at Echaraté. An idea may be formed of the difficulties of the passage when it is reflected that it cost him thirteen days to descend this one hundred and eighty miles, with a powerful current in his favor.
Pr. Vernazzi del.