The town of Exaltacion is situated in the elbow of the river, one mile inland, near a beautiful lake. The place was nearly deserted for the sugar patches and chacras which line the banks up and down the river, to which the Indians repair in the morning early, men, women, and children, and after the day's work is over, return to town for the night. All the towns in Mojos are laid out and built after the same fashion, and the costume of the Indians is the same, except here the women have a fancy for black, and dye their cotton camecitas of that color, which is anything but an improvement in a country where plenty of water may be had. Exaltacion stands on a dry, parched, uninteresting flat. The cathedral and government houses are superior to those of Trinidad, though this town is small and more like Loreto. The tamarind trees and orange groves planted here by the Jesuits flourish better.
As there were some cases of small pox in town, we declined the kind invitation of the correjidor to take up our quarters with him. This gentleman was exceedingly polite, and promised to give us a canoe and fourteen men to carry us to Brazil as soon as possible; Don Antonio being obliged to leave his large boats in the Mamoré river, and load his small canoe with that part of his cargo intended for Matto Grosso. Boats drawing three feet water could not ascend the Itenez river to that town at the dry season of the year. The correjidor gave orders to a commissario to detain a crew in the morning, before the Indians started for the chacras, so they might prepare their "farinha" for the voyage. Yuca turns green, and rots in a few days in its natural state; we will be detained some days, while the women manufacture it into farinha; it is washed, pealed, and grated into a wooden trough; after which it is ground, or mashed by hand between two stones. Maize is often mixed with it, by which it is much improved. After it is dried hard, the flour lasts long enough for a voyage of a month. Cattle are scarce on these prairies; a beef costs four dollars; the crew require one for a start, but as the meat keeps so short a time, they are dependent upon farinha, and what they may pick up on the way.
Don Antonio lost two of his animals on the passage, and from the dry appearance of the pasture, he will lose the others. The correjidor was unwilling to permit him to let them loose on the plain among other cattle and horses; suffering with the worst stages of the disease, he was fearful that they would affect those which had escaped.
In the evening we met the Indians returning from the chacras, all armed with bows and arrows. The tribes to the north are savages, and very unfriendly towards the Cayavabos, who often whip their neighbors when they misbehave themselves. They were loaded with yucas, plantains, oranges, sugar-cane, alligator's eggs, and with the only farming tool they use, a small iron shovel, attached to a long straight handle.
The sugar mill is going all night long; several pairs of oxen are kept ready, and as soon as one becomes tired, a fresh pair is hitched in; the boy that thrusts the cane between three perpendicular cogged cylinders, and the driver of the team, often fall asleep at work, but are kept at it by those put over them to keep the mill going. The mill and oxen all belong to the State, as well as the chacra, from which this cane came. After the Indians have manufactured the government's sugar and rum, then the mill is loaned to them, and their own oxen are hitched to. The fixed stipend of the Church and State officers of the Beni are paid by the income from these government sugar patches, worked gratis by the Indians under orders from the authorities.
The market price of sugar, in the town of Exaltacion, is one real per pound. A quantity of fresh juice is drank like new cider; it is called guarapo; the Indians are very fond of it. They make wry faces at aguadiente, but naturally take to chicha. An Indian always "acknowledges the corn." There are three kinds of sugar-cane here. The largest sized white cane is considered the least valuable; the sweetest and best quality is the small white stalk. The third kind has a dark bluish color, which is said to produce the best aguadiente. It is seldom manufactured into sugar, being inferior to either of the two whites. I collected cuttings of each kind.
By Lieut. L. Gibbon U. S. N.
Lith. of P.S. Duval & Co. Phil.