José is again at a loss to understand the Indian language, so we make use of Cornelio, who is an old friend among these people, and seems to be popular. They see him often on the road which passes through their hunting grounds. The cap the Indian wears upon his head, Cornelio says, was purchased in Cochabamba, Indian like, instead of buying corn for the road.
Maize and yuca serve the men here as bread. Coffee, chocolate, and sugar are their groceries; beans and pepper their vegetables; oranges, papayas, plantains, and bananas, their fruits. The creole is constantly pulling at the tobacco-leaf to roll up in acorn-husk as a cigar. He imports rice, and flour when he can get it; gunpowder, shot, fish-hooks and lines.
This coca business is superintended by a person who employs men from the valley of Cochabamba, willing to seek their fortunes in the wilderness at the rate of twenty-five cents a day. One of the workmen was kind enough to swing my hamac under a shed; he and a companion slept in a bed close by. The contents of a pot were puffing up; the man ran through the dark to its relief; taking the pot from off two stones, he politely invited me to join them at supper. Our light was from the burning chunks of wood, and a hungry dog kept watch around us, and barked when he heard a noise in the woods. The employer of this hospitable man paid him fifteen dollars per annum; clothed him in coarse cotton, lodged him under a shed, and we found his supper of rice very good. Our host was a mestizo, from the town of Sacaba, in the valley of Cochabamba. He expressed great desire to return home. "The climate is more agreeable," he said; "there is less sickness, and there we have nothing to do. The life is a gay one; we play upon the guitar, dance, and sing with the girls, and live an easy life. The girls won't come down here for fear of los animales (wild beasts). We get no mutton for our chupe. Ah, Señor! above all, we never see a cup of chicha; but with hoe in hand, we go to the coca patch at sunrise in the morning, and there remain during the day, only leaving it in case of a heavy rain."
We tried to convince this honest laborer he was doing a better work for his children and his country by cultivating coffee, chocolate, and sugar, than by dancing, music, and drinking chicha. He laughingly shook his head, and said, "the children must take care of themselves as I have done; and as to the country, we are yet without law in Espiritu Santo, except the law of our Catholic church, which exacts of us an annual contribution, which has to be deducted from fifteen dollars a year."
The Espiritu Santo is joined by a smaller stream, Minas Mayo. The two form the river Paracti, which being the main branch of several tributaries on the opposite side, presents quite a formidable stream of seventy yards wide. Its greenish waters flow more sedately, less rapidly, and through a country with less declination than some others. At the head of Paracti the thermometer stood at 73° fahrenheit, and the temperature of the river water, 70°. The small lakes on the ridge have a temperature of 59°, and as we are now at the base of the ridge, we note the difference, 11° fahrenheit. The waters which flow down the sides of the Andes in the dry seasons are partly from the melted snow, having undergone the process of freezing into glaciers, which melt again, and the waters form small lakes near by. As these lakes fill up, the water overflows either on the one side or the other, sometimes on both; if the latter, and the lake be upon the highest ridge of the great range of Cordilleras, that which flows over the west side of the lake is a tributary to the Pacific ocean, and that which comes to the eastward goes to the Atlantic. The main branch to the Mamoré river does not become navigable for canoes until it turns towards the north, and has come fairly under the rain belt, which pours down heavily to latitude 17° south. The navigation of that stream is marked by this edge of the rainy region so plainly, that the river Piray, which is a tributary of the Mamoré and close by it, may be descended in a canoe from Puerto de Jeres, while the main stream throughout its length, south of latitude 17°, is passed on bridges or forded.
On the side of the Paracti the hills are small, and our road during the day's travel is often over flats or slopes, for we are still descending over what may be termed the great breast of the Andes, which swells out magnificently towards the morning sun to the delightful tropical breezes that blow over its productive soil.
Our train of mules are much harassed climbing over the hills, on the east side, one of them, exhausted, lost his footing and rolled over, baggage and all.
We encamped by the side of the Paracti in the wilderness; not a house near us. We passed our acquaintances, the Yuracares Indians, on the road. They marched slowly along, with bows and arrows in hand, dressed in their bark shirts, bare-headed and footed; true wild men of the woods. They had no fish or game. Cornelio said they were treated so well by us they would not exert themselves to hunt, but as soon as they felt hungry, would get fish from the river or turkeys from the woods.
We slung our hamacs between two trees, a fire was made, our mules were turned out in the woods to roam, picking up whatever they might find, under charge of the old white mare, "the mother," as she is called, of the train. Rice is boiling without turkey. The moist climate has affected the gun-caps. Cornelio begins to look thin and haggard. The mules have fallen away so much, it is very doubtful if they will be in fit condition to return.
After supper we lay down to sleep in the rain. The noise of the neighboring stream was musical. We felt we should make headway when once launched upon the river. Though roughly used, our health keeps good, and every day we gain a little. The farther we go the slower the animals move; they are too weak to bear pushing. The men help them up steep places by the after-part of the baggage, changing cargoes every day. The mule that carried a heavy load to-day takes a lighter one to-morrow. Our saddle-mules do better, as they carry a living man with more ease than dead boxes. One of the baggage-mules ran under a tree fallen across the road, struck the end of the box of instruments and knocked it off, and away it rolled down the bank.