Baeza.--The Forest.--Crossing the
Cosanga.--Curi-urcu.--Archidona.--Appearance, Customs, and Belief
of the Natives.--Napo and Napo River.
Eight hours' hard travel from Pachamama brought us to Baeza. This
"Antigua Ciudad," as Villavicencio calls it, was founded in 1552 by Don
Egilio Ramirez Dávalos, and named after the quite different spot where
Scipio the Younger routed Asdrubal a thousand years before. It consists
of two habitations, the residence of two families of Tumbaco Indians,
situated in a clearing of the forest on the summit of a high ridge
running along the right bank of the Coca. This point, about one hundred
miles east of Quito, is important in the little traffic of the Oriente.
All Indian trains from the capital to the province pass through Baeza,
where the trail divides; one branch passing on easterly to San José, and
thence down through Abila and Loreto to Santa Rosa; the other leading to
the Napo through Archidona. Here we rested one day, taking possession of
one half of the larger hut--a mere stockade with a palm-leaf roof,
without chairs, chimney, or fire-place, except any place on the floor.
We swung our hammocks, while our Indians stretched themselves on the
ground beneath us. The island of Juan Fernandez is not a more isolated
spot than Baeza. A dense forest, impenetrable save by the trails,
stretches away on every side to the Andes and to the Atlantic, and
northerly and southerly along the slope of the entire mountain chain.
The forest is such an entangled mass of the living and the fallen, it is
difficult to say which is the predominant spirit--life or death. It is
the cemetery, as well as the birthplace, of a world of vegetation. The
trees are more lofty than on the Lower Amazon, and straight as an
arrow, but we saw none of remarkable size. A perpetual mist seems to
hang on the branches, and the dense foliage forms dark, lofty vaults,
which the sunlight never enters. The soil and air are always cool, and
never dry. Every thing is penetrated with dampness. All our watches
stopped, and remained immovable till we reached Pará. It is this
constant and excessive humidity which renders it so difficult to
transport provisions or prepare an herbarium. The pending branches of
moss are so saturated with moisture that sometimes the branches are
broken off to the peril of the passing traveler. Yet the climate is
healthy. The stillness and gloom are almost painful; the firing of a gun
wakes a dull echo, and any unlooked-for noise is startling. Scarce a
bird or a flower is to be seen in these sombre shades. Nearly the only
signs of animal life visible thus far were insects, mostly butterflies,
fire-flies, and beetles. The only quadruped seen on our journey to the
Napo was a long-tailed marten caught by the Indians. The silence is
almost perfect; its chief interruption is the crashing fall of some old
patriarch of the forest, overcome by the embrace of loving parasites
that twine themselves about the trunk or sit upon the branches. The most
striking singularity in these tropical woods is the host of lianas or
air-roots of epiphytous plants, which hang down from the lofty boughs,
straight as plumb-lines, some singly, others in clusters; some reaching
half way to the ground, others touching it and striking their rootlets
into the earth. We found lianas over one hundred feet long. Sometimes a
toppling tree is caught in the graceful arms of looping _sipôs_, and
held for years by this natural cable. It is these dead trunks, standing
like skeletons, which give a character of solemnity to these primeval
woods. The wildest disorder is seen along the mountain torrents, where
the trees, prostrated by the undermining current, lie mingled with huge
stones brought down by the force of the water. In many places the crowns
of stately monarchs standing on the bank interlock and form a sylvan
arch over the river.
We left Baeza by the southerly trail for Archidona. From Papallacta we
had traveled east, or parallel to the streams which flow down from the
mountains. We were now to cross them (and their name is legion), as also
the intervening ridges; so that our previous journey was nothing to that
which followed. Sometimes we were climbing up an almost vertical ascent,
then descending into a deep, dark ravine, to ford a furious river; while
on the lowlands the path seemed lost in a jungle of bamboos, till our
Indian "bushwhackers" opened a passage with their machetas, and we crept
under a low arcade of foliage. This day we enjoyed something unusual in
our forest trail--a distant view. The path brought us to the verge of a
mountain, whence we could look down on the savage valley of the Cosanga
and upward to the dazzling dome of Antisana; it was our farewell view of
that glorious volcano. At the distance of twelve miles from Baeza we
reached the banks of the Rio Cosanga, camping at a spot called
Chiniplaya. This is the river so much dreaded by Indians and whites
traversing the Napo wilderness. It is fearfully rapid--a very Tigris
from its source to its junction with the Coca. The large, smooth
boulders strewn along its bed show its power. Here, sixty miles from its
origin in the glaciers of Antisana, it is seventy-five feet wide, but in
the wet season it is one hundred yards. The day following we threaded
our difficult way, a _via dolorosa_, fifteen miles up the left bank of
the Cosanga, where we crossed and camped on the opposite side. The
Indians had thrown a log over the deepest part of the river, and the
rest we forded without much danger; but that very night the rain raised
the river to such a magnitude that the little bridge was carried off.
Had we been one day later, we might have waited a week on the other side
of the impassable gulf. Between this point where we forded and
Chiniplaya, fifteen miles below, the barometer indicated a fall of five
hundred feet. The roar of the rushing waters is like that of the sea. In
the beautiful language of Darwin (_Journal_, p. 316): "The sound spoke
eloquently to the geologist; the thousands and thousands of stones,
which, striking against each other, made the one dull, uniform sound,
were all hurrying in one direction. It was like thinking on time, when
the minute that now glides past is irrecoverable. So was it with these
stones. The ocean is their eternity, and each note of that wild music
told of one more step toward their destiny."
On account of the heavy rain and the sickness of a peon, whom finally we
were obliged to leave behind, we rested one day; but on the morrow we
traveled fourteen miles, crossing the lofty Guacamayo ridge,[114]
fording at much risk the deep Cochachimbamba, and camping at a spot (the
Indians have a name for almost any locality in the forest) called
Guayusapugaru. The next day we must have advanced twenty miles, besides
crossing the furious Hondachi. This river was very much swollen by the
rains, and it was only by the aid of a rope that we made the passage.
One stout Indian was carried down stream, but soon recovered himself.
[Footnote 114: Humboldt speaks of this as an active volcano, "from which
detonations are heard almost daily." We heard nothing. It is possible
that he meant Guamani.]
As we had lowered our altitude since leaving Papallacta seven thousand
feet, the climate was much warmer, and vegetation more prolific. Nowhere
else between the Andes and the Atlantic did we notice such a majestic
forest. The tree-ferns, ennobled by the tropical sun and soil, have a
palm-like appearance, but with rougher stems and a usual height of fifty
feet. Plants akin to our "scouring rush" rise twenty-five feet. We saw
to-day the "water tree," or _huadhuas_ of the natives, a kind of bamboo,
which sometimes yields between the joints two quarts of clear,
taste-less water. Late in the evening we reached an old rancho called
_Curi-urcu_ ("the mountain of gold"); but we had traveled so far ahead
of our cargo-train we did not see it again till the next morning. We
were obliged, therefore, to sleep on the ground in our wet clothes, and
put up with hard commons--half parched corn, which our Indian guides
gave us, and unleavened cakes or flour-paste baked on the coals. Thence,
after a short day's journey of ten miles, we arrived at Archidona, by a
path, however, that was slippery with a soft yellow clay. We were a
sorry-looking company, soaked by incessant rains, exhausted by
perspiration, plastered with mud, tattered, and torn; but we were kindly
met by the Jesuit bishop, who took us to his own habitation, where one
Indian washed our feet, and another prepared a most refreshing drink of
_guayusa_ tea. We then took up our quarters at the Government House,
opposite the bishop's, sojourning several days on account of our swollen
feet, and also on account of a swollen river which ran between us and
the Napo. Here we made a valuable collection of birds, lizards, fishes,
and butterflies.
Archidona is situated in a beautiful plain on the high northern bank of
the Misagualli, two thousand feet above the Atlantic. The site is a
cleared spot in the heart of an almost boundless forest; and it was a
relief, not easily conceived, to emerge from beneath the dense leafy
canopy into this open space and look up to the sky and to the snowy
Andes. The climate is uniform and delightful, the mean annual
temperature being seventy-seven degrees. Sand-flies, however, resembling
our "punkies," abound; and the natives are constantly slapping their
naked sides, eating the little pests as the Papallactans do their
lice.[115] Archidona is the largest village in the Napo country,
containing about five hundred souls. The houses are of split bamboo and
palm-thatch, often hid in a plantation of yuca and plantain. The central
and most important structure is the little church; its rude belfry,
portico, chancel, images, and other attempts at ornament remind us of
the fitting words of Mrs. Agassiz, that "there is something touching in
the idea that these poor, uneducated people of the forest have cared to
build themselves a temple with their own hands, lavishing upon it such
ideas of beauty and taste as they have, and bringing at least their best
to their humble altar." Founded by Dávalos in 1560, Archidona has been a
missionary station for two hundred years. The people are child-like and
docile, but the bishop confessed there was no intellectual advance.
Every morning and evening, at the tinkling of a little bell, all
Archidona assembled in the open porch, where the bishop taught them to
sing and pray. It was a novel sight to see these children of the forest
coming out of the woods on all sides and running up to the temple--for
these natives, whenever they move, almost invariably go on a run. The
men are tall and slim and of a dark red color, and their legs are bent
backward at the knees. The governor was the only portly individual we
saw. The women are short, with high shoulders, and are very timid; they
seldom stand erect, and with the knees bent forward they run sneakingly
to church. Their eyes have a characteristic, soft, drooping look. They
carry their babes generally on the hip; not on the back, as in Quito.
The men are hatless, shirtless, and shoeless; their only garments are
short drawers, about six inches long, and little ponchos, both of
lienzo, dyed a dark purple with achote--the red seeds of the bixa, which
the cooks of Quito use to color their soups. All paint their bodies with
the same pigment. The women wear a frock reaching from the waist to the
knees; it is nothing more than a yard or two of lienzo wound around the
body. The Archidonians are the most Christianized of all the Napo
Indians, but they can not be called religious. Their rites (they can
hardly be said to have a creed) are the _a_, _b_, _c_, of Romanism,
mingled with some strange notions--the relics of a lost paganism. They
are very superstitious, and believe, as before remarked, in the
transmigration of souls. Maniacs they think are possessed by an evil
demon, and therefore are treated with great cruelty. Negroes (of whom a
few specimens have come up the Napo from Brazil) are held to be under
the ban of the Almighty, and their color is ascribed to the singeing
which they got in the flames of hell. They do not believe in disease;
but, like the Mundurucus on the Tapajos, say that death is always caused
by the sorceries of an enemy. They usually bury in the church or in the
tambo of the deceased. Celibacy and polygamy, homicide and suicide, are
rare.
[Footnote 115: The Chasuta Indians, Herndon says, eat musquitoes that
they catch on their bodies with the idea of restoring the blood which
the insect has abstracted.]
The only sign of industry in Archidona is the manufacture of pita thread
from the aloe. It is exported to Quito on human backs. The inhabitants
also collect copal at the headwaters of the Hondachi, and use it for
illumination. It can be bought in Archidona for three or four cents a
pound. The gum exudes from a lofty leguminous tree having an oak-like
bark. It resembles the animé of Madagascar rather than the copal of
India, which flows from an entirely different tree. Guayusa, or "Napo
tea," is another and celebrated production of Archidona. It is the large
leaf of a tall shrub growing wild. An infusion of guayusa, like the
_maté_ of Paraguay (which belongs to the same genus _Ilex_), is so
refreshing it supplies for a long time the place of food. The Indians
will go to Quito on this beverage alone, its virtues being similar to
those of _coca_, on the strength of which the posts of the Incas used to
travel incredible distances. It is by no means, however, such a
stimulant. It is a singular fact, observes Dr. Jameson, that tea,
coffee, cacao, maté, and guayusa contain the same alkaloid caffeine. The
last, however, contains only one fifteenth as much of the active
principle as tea, and no volatile oil. Herndon found guayusa on the
Ucayali.
At Archidona we took a new set of peons for Napo, as the Papallactans do
not travel farther. The distance is sixteen miles, and the path is
comparatively good, though it crosses two rivers, the Misagualli and
Tena. On this journey we found the only serpent seen since leaving
Quito. This solitary specimen was sluggish and harmless, but exceedingly
beautiful. It was the _Amphisboena fuliginosa_, or "slow-worm." It
lives in the chambers of the Saüba ants. We met a procession of these
ants, each carrying a circular piece of a leaf vertically over its head.
These insects are peculiar to tropical America, and are much dreaded in
Brazil, where they soon despoil valuable trees of their foliage. They
cut the leaves with their scissor-like jaws, and use them to thatch the
domes at the entrance of their subterranean dwellings.
At Napo we took possession of the governor's house. Each village in the
Napo province was obliged to build an edifice of split bamboo for that
dignitary; and, as he no longer exists, they are left unoccupied. They
generally stand on the highest and best site in the town, and are a
god-send to travelers. Immediately on our arrival, the Indian governor
and his staff of justices called to see what we wanted, and during our
stay supplied us with chickens, eggs, plantains, yucas, and fuel. His
excellency would always come, silver-headed cane in hand, though the
justices had only six eggs or a single fowl to bring us. The alcalde
also paid us his respects. He is an old blanco (as the whites are
called), doing a little traffic in gold dust, lienzo, and pita, but is
the highest representative of Ecuador in the Napo country. Here, too, we
met, to our great delight, Mr. George Edwards, a native of Connecticut,
who has settled himself, probably for life, in the depths of this
wilderness. He was equally rejoiced to see the face and hear the speech
of a countryman. His industry and upright character have won for him the
respect and good-will of the Indians, and he is favorably known in
Quito. The government has given him a tract of land on the Yusupino, two
miles west of Napo village. Here he is cultivating vanilla, of which he
has now three thousand plants, and also his patience, for six years
elapse after transplanting before a pod appears. He has been so long in
the country (thirteen years) his English would now and then run off into
Spanish or Quichua.
Napo is prettily situated on the left bank of the Rio Napo, a dense
forest inclosing it on every side. The maximum number of inhabitants is
eighty families; but many of these are in town only in festival seasons.
It was well for us that we reached the Napo during the feasts; otherwise
we might not have found men enough to man our canoes down the river.
There are three or four blancos, petty merchants, who follow the old
Spanish practice of compulsory sales, forcing the Indians to take
lienzo, knives, beads, etc., at exorbitant prices, and making them pay
in gold dust and pita. This kind of commerce is known under the name of
_repartos_. It is hard to find an Indian whose gold or whose labor is
not claimed by the blancos. The present and possible productions of this
region are: bananas, plantains, yucas,[116] yams, sweet potatoes, rice,
beans, corn, lemons, oranges, chirimoyas, anonas (a similar fruit to the
preceding), pine-apples, palm cabbages, guavas, guayavas, castor-oil
beans, coffee, cacao, cinnamon, India-rubber, vanilla (two kinds),[117]
chonta-palm nuts, sarsaparilla, contrayerva (a mint), tobacco (of
superior quality), and guayusa; of woods, balsam, red wood, Brazil wood,
palo de cruz, palo de sangre, ramo caspi, quilla caspi, guayacan (or
"holy wood," being much used for images), ivory palm, a kind of ebony,
cedar, and aguana (the last two used for making canoes); of dyewoods,
sarne (dark red), tinta (blue), terriri, and quito (black); of gums,
estoraque (a balsam) and copal, besides a black beeswax, the production
of a small (Trigona) bee, that builds its comb in the ground; of
manufactures, pita, hammocks, twine, calabashes, aguardiente (from the
plantain), chicha (from the yuca),[118] sugar and molasses (from the
cane, which grows luxuriantly), and manati-lard; of minerals, gold dust.
The gold, in minute spangles, is washed down by the rivers at flood
time, chiefly from the Llanganati Mountains. The articles desired in
exchange are lienzo, thread, needles, axes, hoes, knives, fish-hooks,
rings, medals, crosses, beads, mirrors, salt, and poison. Quito nearly
monopolizes the trade; though a few canoes go down the Napo to the
Marañon after salt and poison. The salt comes from near Chasuta, on the
Huallaga;[119] the _urari_ from the Ticuna Indians. It takes about
twenty days to paddle down to the Marañon, and three months to pole up.
The Napo is navigable for a flat-bottomed steamer as far as Santa
Rosa,[120] and it is a wonder that Anglo-Saxon enterprise has not put
one upon these waters. The profits would be great, as soon as commercial
relations with the various tribes were established.[121] Four yards of
coarse cotton cloth, for example, will exchange for one hundred pounds
of sarsaparilla. _Urari_ is sold at Napo for its weight in silver. By a
decree of the Ecuadorian Congress, there will be no duty on foreign
goods entering the Napo for twenty years. The Napo region, under proper
cultivation, would yield the most valuable productions of either
hemisphere in profusion. But agriculture is unknown; there is no word
for plow. The natives spend most of their time in idleness, or feasting
and hunting. Their weapons are blow-guns and wooden spears; our guns
they call by a word which signifies "thunder and lightning." Laying up
for the future or for commerce is foreign to their ideas. The houses are
all built of bamboo tied together with lianas, and shingled with leaves
of the sunipanga palm. The Indians are peaceful, good-natured, and idle.
They seldom steal any thing but food. Their only stimulants are chicha,
guayusa, and tobacco. This last they roll up in plantain leaves and
smoke, or snuff an infusion of it through the nose from the upper bill
of a toucan. "The Peruvians (says Prescott, quoting Garcilasso) differ
from every other Indian nation to whom tobacco was known by using it
only for medicinal purposes in the form of snuff." There is no bread on
the Napo; the nearest approach to flour is yuca starch. There are no
clocks or watches; time is measured by the position of the sun. The mean
temperature at Napo village is about one degree warmer than that of
Archidona. Its altitude above the sea is 1450 feet. The nights are cool,
and there are no musquitoes; but sand-flies are innumerable. Jiggers
also have been seen. There are no well-defined wet and dry seasons; but
the most rain falls in May, June, and July. The lightning, Edwards
informed us, seldom strikes. Dysentery, fevers, and rheumatism are the
prevailing diseases; and we saw one case of goître. But the climate is
considered salubrious. Few twins are born; and there are fewer children
than in Archidona--a difference ascribed by some to the exposure of the
Napo people in gold washing; by others to the greater quantity of
guayusa drunk by the Archidonians.
[Footnote 116: Sometimes called _yuca dulce_, or sweet yuca, to
distinguish it from the _yuca brava_, or wild yuca, the mandioca of the
Amazon, from which farina is made. The yuca is the beet-like root of a
little tree about ten feet high. It is a good substitute for potatoes
and bread.]
[Footnote 117: Vanilla belongs to the orchid family, and is the only
member which possesses any economical value. It is a graceful climber
and has a pretty star-like flower.]
[Footnote 118: In Peru, the liquor made from yuca is called _masato_.]
[Footnote 119: Rock-salt is found on both sides of the Andes. "The
general character of the geology of these countries would rather lead to
the opinion that its origin is in some way connected with volcanic heat
at the bottom of the sea."--Darwin's _Observations_, pt. iii., p. 235.]
[Footnote 120: "The Napo (Herndon was told) is very full of sand-banks,
and twenty days from its mouth (or near the confluence of the Curaray)
the men have to get overboard and drag the canoes!"--_Report_, p. 229.]
[Footnote 121: The chief difficulty throughout the Upper Amazon is in
getting the Indians to concentrate along the bank. But honorable dealing
would accomplish this in time.]
The Napo is the largest river in the republic. From its source in the
oriental defiles of Cotopaxi and Sincholagua to its embouchure at the
Marañon, its length is not far from eight hundred miles, or about twice
that of the Susquehanna.[122] From Napo village to the mouth of the
river our barometer showed a fall of a thousand feet. At Napo the
current is six miles an hour; between Napo and Santa Rosa there are
rapids; and between Santa Rosa and the Marañon the rate is not less than
four miles an hour. At Napo the breadth is about forty yards; at Coca
the main channel is fifteen hundred feet wide; and at Camindo it is a
full Spanish mile. Below Coca the river throws out numerous canals,
which, isolating portions of the forest-clad lowlands, create numerous
picturesque islands. Around and between them the river winds, usually
making one bend in every league. The tall trees covering them are bound
together by creeping plants into a thick jungle, the home of capybaras
and the lair of the jaguar. The islands, entirely alluvial, are
periodically flooded, and undergo a constant round of decay and
renovation. Indeed, the whole river annually changes its channel, so
that navigation is somewhat difficult. The Indians, on coming to a fork,
were frequently at a loss to know which was the main channel. Then, too,
the river is full of snags and _plaias_, or low, shelving sand-banks,
rising just above the water-level--the resort of turtles during the egg
season. It was interesting to trace the bed of the river as we floated
down; on the rapid slope of the Cordilleras rushing over or rolling
along huge boulders, which farther on were rapidly reduced in size,
till, in time, boulders were broken into pebbles, pebbles turned into
sand, and sand reduced to impalpable mud.[123] The _plaias_ are not
auriferous. Below Coca there is a wilderness of lagunes, all connected
with the river, the undisturbed retreat of innumerable water-fowl. The
only spot on the Napo where the underlying rocks are exposed is near
Napo village. There it is a dark slate, gently dipping east. Farther
west, in fact, throughout this side of the Andes, the prevailing rock is
mica-schist. But the entire Napo country is covered with an alluvial
bed, on the average ten feet thick.
[Footnote 122: Its actual source is the Rio del Valle, which runs
northward through the Valle Vicioso. Its longest tributary, the Curaray,
rises only a few miles to the south in the Cordillera de los Mulatos.
The two rivers run side by side 4° of longitude before meeting. Coca,
the northern branch, originates in the flanks of Cayambi. The Napo and
its branches are represented incorrectly in every map we have examined.
The Aguarico is confounded with the Santa Maria and made too long, and
the Curaray is represented too far above the mouth of the Napo. There
are no settlements between Coca and Camindo.]
[Footnote 123: From specimens of sand which we obtained at different
points in descending the river, we find that at Coca it contains 17.5
per cent. of pure quartz grains, the rest being colored dark with
augite: at the mouth of the Napo there is 50 per cent. of pure quartz,
the other half being light-colored and feldspathic.]