Villa of Ibarra, Description.....Villa of Otavalo, Description....Lakes San Pablo and Cuicocha....Visit to the River Mapo....Gold Mines on the Banks of....Indians pay their Tribute in Gold....BÆza, the Capital of the District....Description of the Inhabitants, &c....Commissioned by the Government to Explore a Road from the Capital to the nearest Point of the Coast....Maldonado's Road....Leave Quito....Cross the Skirts of Pichincha, arrive at the River Piti....Description of the Country....Description of Piti....Proceed to Esmeraldas....Description of the River of Jaguar....Houses, Plantations, Cattle....Method of Distilling Rum....Food of the Inhabitants....Saino Tatabra, and Aguti, or Huatus....Monkey and Charapa....Method of Killing Game with the Sorbetana and Poisoned Pua.

Eighteen leagues to the northward of Quito is the town, villa, of Ibarra: it contains about twelve thousand inhabitants, many of whom are employed in the manufactories of cotton and woollen cloths, stockings, coverlets, and ponchos; the last of which are superior to those of any other part of the kingdom. Here are a parish church and four convents, San Francisco, Santo Domingo, San Augstin, and la Merced, and a nunnery of La ConceptiÓn. The houses are generally good, the streets wide and convenient, and the market-place capacious. Some of the shops are tolerably stored with European goods, and the trade carried on is very considerable. The climate is warmer than that of Quito, and the market is supplied with meat, pulse, fruit, and vegetables. Ibarra, being the capital of the district of the same name, is the residence of the Corregidor.

In the district of Ibarra are many very fruitful valleys, in which there are extensive plantations of sugar cane, from which the best sugar in the kingdom is manufactured. The wheat grown in this district is also of the finest quality.

To the south west of Ibarra is the town, villa, of Otavalo, the capital of the province or district of the same name. It contains from eighteen to twenty thousand inhabitants, many of whom are mestisos, of a fair complexion, and handsome in appearance; some of the men are remarkably robust and muscular, indeed I never saw a race of finer looking people than an assembly of OtavaleÑos on a Sunday, when they meet at church, or at a feast. The climate of this town is much colder than at Ibarra, or Quito, owing to its greater elevation, as well as to its proximity to Cayambe urcu. Cotton and wool are manufactured here in the same manner as at Ibarra, the natives appearing more inclined to this kind of labour than to the cultivation of the earth. Large quantities of cattle are bred in the district of Otavalo, and some of the large estates have from four to five hundred indians attached to them, who are employed either in the cultivation of the land, or in the manufactories, obrages. One large estate belongs to the Count of Casa Xijon, who brought several mechanics and artisans from Europe for the purpose of establishing a manufactory of fine cloths, woollens, and cottons; also for printing calicoes, and other goods; but being prevented by the interference of the royal audience, and a subsequent order from Spain, he was prevailed on to destroy all his machinery, and to re-embark the artisans for Europe.

In this district there are two lakes; the larger one, called de San Pablo, is about a league long and half a league wide, and is most abundantly stored with wild geese, ducks, widgeons, herons, storks, and other aquatic birds, but no fish. The smaller one is called Cuicocha; in the centre of this there is a small island, where there are abundance of guinea pigs in a wild state, named by the natives cuis, and hence the name Cuicocha, cocha signifying a lake. Some small fish called prenadillas, are caught here; they are somewhat similar to prawns, but when boiled retain their colour, which is almost black.

After I had visited Ibarra and Otavalo, I was ordered by the President, in December, 1808, to visit the river Napo, for the purpose of reporting on the state of the gold mines on the shores of that river. This commission was extremely flattering to my wandering inclinations, not only on account of my being thus able to visit some parts of the country little known to Europeans, but because I should have an opportunity of witnessing the very river where the undaunted Orellana embarked, and among undiscovered and unheard of nations traversed the greatest extent of country that had ever been crossed at that time by any human being.

I was accompanied by six indians from Quito, and four yumbo indians. The latter inhabit a valley between Quito and BÆza, and frequently bring to the former place pine-apples, bananas, yucas, camotes, besides other fruits and esculents. The yumbos were our guides, while the Quito indians carried my provisions, clothes, bedding, and other necessaries.

Our first day's journey was to Pomasqui, where we passed the night at the house of a friend, who kindly added some machica and dried tongues to my stock of eatables. On the following day we began to ascend the eastern chain of the Cordillera, and slept at night in a small hut made of a few slight poles, covered with pajon; the following night we slept to the eastward of Antisana. On the fourth day we began to descend by a very rugged path, and in some places so nearly perpendicular that we were obliged to prevent ourselves from falling by taking hold of the roots of trees, or the crags of rocks; however, about three o'clock in the afternoon we reached the first small plantation and first hut of the yumbos, where we remained that night, and on the following day I found myself travelling along the north side of the Napo.

I was met here by the son of Don Diego Melo, Governador of Archidona, who pointed out to me the soil which contained gold. It was of a reddish hue, and generally lay about three or four feet deep, having underneath it a stratum of indurated clay; some of these capas, as they are called, extend from one to two hundred yards or more from the margin of the river, and are of different breadths, from twenty to sixty yards. No trees or vegetables grow in this kind of soil, and the gold, its only produce, is obtained by washings: hence they are called lavaderos, washing places, which I shall describe when on the coast of Choco.

The indians of the district of Archidona pay their tribute in gold dust, which they collect from the sand along the sides of the different rivulets; but owing to their ignorance of the comforts which this metal would procure them, or perhaps to a dread of their being enslaved by the mita, to work the mines, should they ever present themselves to pay the tribute with an excess of it, they generally take care to pay it at five or six different times, always complaining of the scarcity of gold, and the trouble it costs to procure a small quantity. It is nevertheless known, that if any remain after the payment is made, they throw it into the river; but Don Diego Melo assured me, that one indian always paid his tribute in a kind of gold, which he showed to me, and which was evidently not in natural grains, but in small particles apparently cut with a knife, or some other instrument, from a solid lump of that metal. Don. N. Valencia sent some negroes to work a lavadero on the Napo; but his death occasioned them to be recalled shortly afterwards, and the project was abandoned, the negroes being ordered to return to Choco.

There can be no doubt as to the immensity of treasure which is buried in the capas, nor of that which is annually washed down by the rains through the small ravines and rivulets into the river Napo, and thence into the MaraÑon, where it is lost. I think the necessity of negroes for working these mines might be superseded by a kind treatment of the native indians; by indulging them in their foibles at first, and afterwards gradually convincing them of the benefit that would result to themselves from their free labour in the mines. It would certainly be superior to that of cultivating a few patches of land, and carrying the produce to Quito or any of the other Spanish towns, to barter for iron, fish-hooks, brads, and indigo. It is very evident, that such a project would require a considerable degree of patience and self-command, and I may add of honesty too, because the principal object would be to secure the confidence of the indians, which, owing to the conduct generally observed to them by the Spaniards, would not be easily accomplished.

From the accounts which I was able to collect, it appears that all the rivers and streams in the neighbourhood of the Napo contain gold; and in different parts of the province of Archidona, or, as it is more generally termed, Quixos y Macas, there are capas, or strata of earth whence gold may be extracted by washings.

BÆza is the ancient capital, and formerly contained upwards of ten thousand inhabitants; but since the expulsion of the Jesuits it has become entirely depopulated, as well as Archidona and Avila, two other cities, and twenty-two missions, the greater part of the indians having taken to their original way of living in a wild state. Those that remain are generally called yumbos; they employ themselves in the cultivation of cotton, sugar-cane, mam, and some tropical fruits, which they carry to Quito to barter for those commodities which they find necessary either for fishing or for the chase. They also manufacture the small quantity of cloth which they require for themselves; this is of cotton, and is generally no more than a toldo, mosquito curtain, in the shape of a small tent, under which they sleep, besides one or two sheets of the same material. The clothing of the men is merely a pair of short drawers, reaching from the waist to about the middle of the thighs, and is generally white; that of the women consists of a piece of blue cotton cloth wrapped round the waist, reaching down to the knees; but a profusion of glass beads adorn their necks, arms, wrists, and ankles. Both men and women daub themselves with annota, achiote. In this half dress they traverse the Cordillera, and with a basket made of piquigua, a very tough creeper, carry their surplus to Quito.

On my return to the capital of the kingdom, I was commissioned by his Excellency the President to re-explore the roads leading from Quito to the coast, namely, that explored in 1741 by Don Pedro Maldonado Sotomayor, and that opened in 1803 by the President, Baron de Carondelet.

It had always been considered an object of the greatest importance to open a communication between the capital and the nearest sea-port, for the purpose of facilitating the commerce between this place, Panama, and Terra-firma, and to avoid the inconveniences which are met with in the circuitous road to Guayaquil, and which were highly injurious to business in general.

In 1621 Don Pablo Durango Delgadillo was nominated Governador of Esmeraldas; he contracted with the Royal Audience of Quito to open a road at his own cost from the town of Ibarra to the coast, and to establish tambos, lodging houses, on the road; but he failed in the fulfilment of his contract, and in 1626 was deprived of his government, which was conferred, on the same conditions, on Don Francisco Peres Munacho, who failed, like his predecessor, and was removed. Don Juan Vicencio Justinian and Don Hernando de Soto Calderon were afterwards appointed. They proposed a route to the coast different from their predecessors, but they also failed in the execution of their plan. It was adopted, however, by the Baron de Carondelet, who ordered the road leading from Ibarra along the bank of the river Mira to that of La Tola to be opened; but it was soon discovered, that the river Tola, owing to a sand bank, or bar, which crosses the mouth of it, could never answer the purposes of a port; and, from the manner in which the road had been formed, in three years it became impassable, and passengers generally preferred the paths along the woods to the highway. The continuance of this road as a communication between the capital and the coast was not the only objection—a distance of eighteen or twenty leagues was added to that proposed in 1735 by Don Pedro Maldonado Sotomayor.

This intelligent QuiteÑo employed himself for more than two years in examining the country lying between the capital and the coast, and being invested with the same powers that were given to other projectors, in 1741 he opened a road leading directly from Quito to the river Piti, which has its origin in Pichincha, and forms part of the Esmeraldas river. Maldonado immediately went to Spain, and solicited a confirmation of the contract, and from the favourable report of the council, the King erected Esmeraldas into a government and a Lieutenant-Captain Generalship in 1746, conferring on Don Pedro Maldonado the appointment of Governor.

On the return of Maldonado to Quito the Royal Audience opposed the appointment, and immediately informed the Council of Indies, that the projected port and road would only open to the enemies of Spain an entrance to one of her richest American cities, without at any time rendering an increase to the royal revenue. This report produced a counter order, when Maldonado abandoned his native country in disgust, and retired to France.

The importance of the projected communication was so glaring, that the merchants and natives never abandoned any opportunity of proposing it. The President Baron de Carondelet had been induced to open the road called de Malbucho; but this failing to answer the expectations of the people, the President Count Ruis de Castilla was solicited to order an examination of Maldonado's projected road; and the commission for this purpose was conferred on me in May, 1809.

I immediately prepared for my expedition, by ordering a surveying chain, and by putting my sextant and some other instruments in order; re-engaging also the indians who had accompanied me to Napo, as well as six others. One of these was to be my carrier, and he waited on me for the purpose of measuring me for a chair. My stock of provisions and other necessaries having been procured, I left Quito with my suite; it was composed of ten indians, with my luggage, one indian with my chair, a servant, and four soldiers; forming a procession which would have attracted the attention and drawn a smile from the inhabitants of any city in England.

The indians had their usual dresses, composed of white drawers, brown capisayas, and sandals made of bullock's hide. Each carried on his back a basket, like those of the yumbo indians, having a girth passing under the bottom of it, which crossed the forehead; another was fastened round the basket, one end of which the indian held in his hand to steady his cargo. My carrier had a chair made of canes, and just large enough for me to squeeze myself into; it had a board to rest my feet upon, and two or three canes formed an arch over my head; these were for the purpose of placing leaves on when it might happen to rain. The two hind feet of the chair rested on two straps, which passed round the arms of the indian close to his body, and one attached to the top went round his forehead; so that when seated my back was towards the back of my supporter.

Leaving Quito, we travelled along the plain of AÑaquito about two leagues, and then began to ascend the skirts of Pichincha, at a small village called Cotocollo: the ascent was very gentle, and after a journey of five leagues, we rested on the western side of the summit, at a small hamlet called Yana Cancha. We had here a most beautiful prospect of the crater of Pichincha, which was only about half a mile distant, and during the whole of the night I could hear a rumbling noise, and I sometimes imagined that I felt a tremulous motion. These appalling circumstances kept me awake for a considerable time, though they had no such effect on my indians and the guard, nor on the inhabitants of the house, who all slept soundly, and many of them snored most lustily. At sunrise the view from Yana Cancha was most enchanting; from the slope of the mountain, apparently from the crater, the river Mindo rolled down to the fertile valley which it irrigates, dispensing its necessary support to the many small plantations of sugar-cane, camotes, yucas, bananas and plantains, which are cultivated at the bottom of the ravine: to the westward immense forests extended themselves, forming the boundary of the horizon to the naked eye; but with the assistance of a good eye-glass I could perceive the Pacific Ocean beyond the limit of the woods.

Having crossed two eminences called Yarumos, and another called Inga Chaca, the remainder of the road to the place of embarkation on the river Piti was quite level, being intersected about every three leagues with small rivulets. The whole distance from Quito to Piti being only eighteen leagues, without any obstacles whatever to prevent it from being converted into a most excellent road, makes a difference between this and that leading to Guayaquil of about fifty leagues of land travelling.

When on our journey we had to halt for the night, the indians unloaded themselves, and cut down six or eight slender poles, ten feet long, which they stuck into the ground; they then cut others, which they tied crossways to the former, with strips of bark; they next pulled the upper part forward till this half roof formed an angle with the ground of about forty-five degrees, and sticking a pole into the ground in front, they tied the cross pole to the top of it to keep the building in a proper position. The next business was to cover it, and for this purpose each of them had procured when at Yana Cancha a roll of about twenty vijao leaves, which were laid in rows along it from the bottom to the top, each leaf hanging over the next inferior one, so that the rain was entirely carried off, and to secure the dryness of this rude, yet comfortable cabin, a small gutter was always dug at the back to carry off the water. During this operation part of the indians were engaged in procuring water, either from some neighbouring rivulet, or, after we had descended the hill called el Castillo, from the huadhuas. These are large canes, the largest species I believe of the gramina tribes; they grow to the height of forty feet, perfectly straight, and at the bottom are about six inches in diameter. The whole of the cane is divided by knots, from ten to fifteen inches asunder; when green, they are filled with excellent water, so that from each division about two quarts may be obtained by cutting a notch in the cane; when they are approaching to a state of ripeness, the water becomes like a jelly, and when quite ripe it is converted into a white calcareous substance, some of the knots holding upwards of two ounces of this matter, which a few months before was held in solution in a perfectly transparent fluid: on this account the indians object to drink the water, on the supposition that it may produce calculi.

The leaves are in shape somewhat similar to those of the banana, about a yard long, and half a yard broad; the upper side is of a beautiful pale green, the under white; it is covered with a substance which melts when held near the fire, and collected has the appearance and possesses all the qualities of bees' wax. A small portion of it being added to tallow hardens it considerably, and the candles made from this composition are rendered much more durable in hot climates. These leaves are preferable to those of the plantain, or banana, for they are quite pliable, and are therefore often used for packing instead of paper, whereas the banana leaf is easily torn into shreds; this, however, may be prevented by holding them over the fire till they become pliable. It is customary for the indians to pay a real at Yana Cancha for the loan of each bundle, which they engage to deliver on their return, or they give two bundles for one instead of a real; thus travellers carry under their arms during the day the roof which is to shelter them at night.

The soil of the country between Quito and Piti is very rich, and abounds in many kinds of most excellent timber, suitable for buildings as well as for the cabinet maker; among these there are cedars, huachapeli, ebony, cascol, guayacan, lumas, and many others. One kind, called sangre de drago, dragon's blood, grows in many places near to Piti. It attains the height of forty or fifty feet; the leaf is somewhat similar to that of the laurel, and the gum which it produces, and which gives it the name it bears, oozes immediately whenever an incision is made in the bark; it is then received on a leaf, or in a small hollow cane, or else it is left to harden in the sun, by which means each drop becomes in size and shape like an almond; the indians collect it and carry it to Quito, where it is sold as a dye.

The appearance of the yarumos scattered in clusters in different parts of the woods is most beautiful from an eminence. They are a species of bombax; the wood is porous and light, the leaves extremely large, and of a very pale green colour, so that amid the dark green foliage of these extensive woods they look like enormous flowers.

The richness of the soil, the plenteousness of water, even for irrigation should it be necessary, the serenity of the climate, and the facility of procuring indians as labourers, with every advantage that can be desirable, render it very probable, that this part of Quito will soon become populous, and that Panama, and the mines of ChocÓ, will in a few years be supplied with the produce of land now in an uncultivated state. There can be no doubt but that herds of cattle and fields of grain will crown the labours of those who may form establishments in this charming territory, where maize, wheat, rice, and plantains, the daily bread of the four quarters of the globe, will be produced in abundance to reward the labour of the husbandman.

At Piti I found an old man, his wife, and two sons living in a comfortable house, built like those of the Puna in the Guayaquil river, shaded with half a dozen lofty coro palms, and fanned with the magnificent leaves of the plantain, while the banana, several orange, lemon, palta, guava, arnona, and other intertropical fruit trees were laden with fruit, at the same time that small patches of sugar-cane, yucas, and camotes, seemed to vie with each other in luxuriance: numbers of turkeys, fowls and ducks ran about on a small plot of ground lying between the house and the river, which is here about a hundred yards wide. Two canoes were tied to two trees, in one of which there was a small casting net, several harpoons and fishing lines—every thing seemed to bespeak comfort, nay, even profusion.

The old man informed me, that he was a native of Guayaquil; but that he had resided on this spot for more than fifty years, on which account the natives of the country had surnamed him taita Piti, father Piti. He shewed me forty-eight tiger or jaguar skins, and assured me, that the animals had all been slain by his own lance; but he was sorry, he said, that the sport was at an end, not because he was old, but because there were no tigers left in the neighbourhood for him to kill, upwards of seven years having elapsed since he took the last skin. He assured me, that whenever he found the track of a tiger he always followed it alone, and never rested till he had slain his victim. The skins were hung on the inside of the roof and round the sides of the house, forming a very pretty, but rather uncommon kind of tapestry.

I here discharged my indians, and paid them only three dollars each, although I had detained them eleven days on the road; my carrier told me, that he had never had a lighter cargo, having had nothing but the chair to carry; indeed I never entered it but twice, once out of curiosity, and another time through persuasion: they all laid out their money in fruit, roots, and dried fish, which they took to Quito, and which would pay them at least cent. per cent.

I rested one day at Piti, and then proceeded down the river in a small canoe with the two sons of old Piti, leaving orders for my servant, luggage, and the soldiers to follow me in a larger one.

We glided down the stream about two miles, the river in some parts being so narrow, that the branches of the trees which grew on each side were entwined with each other over our heads, and formed a leafy canopy almost impenetrable to the rays of the sun, and we could observe the fishes frisking about in the water beneath; sometimes where the river became wider, the margins were covered with the luxuriant gamalote, the leaves of which are generally a yard long and two inches broad, being somewhat like those of the maize; the stem is sometimes two yards high, as green as the leaves, so long as the soil in which it grows continues to be moist; but as soon as the earth becomes dry the plant immediately decays. Here we saw some beautiful fat oxen grazing on this plant; they belonged to the inhabitants of three houses, each of which was as charmingly situated as that at Piti. We soon arrived at the place called the Embarcadero de Maldonado, where we left our canoe tied to a pole, and took a breakfast composed of smoked fish broiled, fried eggs, and plantains; and for drink we had some masato and rum made by the natives.

The masato is made by boiling a quantity of ripe plantains till they are quite soft; these are reduced to a pulp by beating them in a trough; this pulp is then put into a basket lined with vijao leaves, and allowed to ferment two, three, or more days; when it is wanted a spoonful or more is taken out and put into a tutuma bored full of holes like a cullender, a quantity of water is added to it, and the whole is rubbed through the holes of one tutuma into another without holes, which serves as a bowl to drink out of; or small tutumas are filled from it, and handed round. I was highly pleased with the masato, and scarcely took any thing else for my breakfast; the taste is a sub-acid, but remarkably agreeable. I purchased a small basket for the remainder of our passage down the river, at which my two palanqueros were not a little pleased.

At the distance of three leagues from the Embarcadero de Maldonado a most enchanting prospect suddenly burst on our sight. We had almost insensibly glided along the unrippled surface of the river Piti, a distance of about four leagues, during which the view was limited on each side by the lofty and almost impenetrable woods, and before us by the windings of the river—where not a sound was heard save the occasional chattering of the parrots and monkeys on the trees, or the shout of my palanqueros to the inmates of some solitary houses scattered along the banks. Our sphere of existence seemed solitary, and as silent as a dungeon, and I lolled in the canoe as if oppressed with uninterrupted solemnity, such as might be congenial to the pious musings of a holy anchorite; but I was suddenly roused from my reverie by the loud roaring of the river Blanco, and in a moment the scene was changed; at once our narrow river formed part of another, three hundred yards wide; on our left the whole range of the country as far as the coast was extended in the prospect. The Blanco, which rises in the neighbourhood of Tacunga, after collecting part of the waters of el Corason and Pichincha, and receiving those of several tributary streams, becomes navigable at its junction with the Piti. The country on the western side of the river is to a considerable extent very level, the soil good, but the trees neither so numerous nor so lofty as in other parts, owing perhaps to a scanty depth of soil, which seems extremely well calculated for a rice country; indeed the natives assured me, that the small patches sometimes cultivated here multiplied the seed six hundred fold.

After passing the mouths of several minor rivers we arrived at that of Guallabamba, equal in size to the river Blanco. The union of the two is called Esmeraldas. We continued our course, and reached the city of Esmeraldas in the evening. The distance from Piti to this place is about eighteen leagues, which notwithstanding our delays we completed in nine hours.

During our passage down the river I was very much delighted with the sight of a full grown tiger, which lay basking in the sun on a sand-bank that projected from the side of the river almost across it. The noble brute was stretched close to the edge of the bank, frequently dipping his tail into the water, and sprinkling it over him, while his muzzle and feet touched the stream. After watching the animal for a quarter of an hour, my palanqueros became impatient, and at last taking their lances they jumped ashore from the canoe, but at the same moment the tiger sprang on his feet, yawned, stretched himself, and trotted into the woods, leaving the two young fellows to lament the effects of their less nimble feet.

Between Piti and Esmeraldas I counted forty-two houses, built on the sides of the river, each having plantations of sugar-cane, yucas, camotes, aji (capsicum), plantains, and bananas. Near many of the houses horned cattle were feeding on the luxuriant gamalote, and at every house pigs and poultry were running about. Each farmer has a hand-mill for grinding sugar-cane; its construction is very simple, being composed of two wooden rollers placed horizontally in grooves cut in two upright pieces. The ends of the rollers project, one on each side, having cross levers for the purpose of turning them; with this simple wooden machine, for not one of all those that I saw had a nail, nor any other iron work about it, the natives express the juice from the cane, for the purpose of making guarapo, molasses, and rum; two men are generally employed at the rollers, and a woman attends to place the cane between them, while the boys and girls bring it from the plantation.

It was here that I observed the peculiar mode of cultivating the sugar-cane, which I have already spoken of; that is, of cutting the ripe canes every three months, uncovering the roots of the remainder, incorporating the soil with new earth, or digging it as well as that of the space between the two rows, and then hoeing the earth up to the roots again. By these means the cane here is perennial; while in the province of Guayaquil, where the same mode of cultivation is not observed, the plant yields only two, or at most three crops. Although the cane at Esmeraldas is of the creole kind, I have seen it when ripe more than ten feet high, six inches in diameter, and seven or eight inches between the knots or geniculi.

The means employed by the natives in the manufacture of their rum are remarkably simple: the juice of the cane is allowed to obtain the proper degree of fermentation, and is then distilled. The apparatus used for this purpose is a deep earthen pot, having a hole on one side near the top; through this they pass a large wooden spoon, having a groove in the handle; on the top of the pot there is a pan luted to it with clay, and this being repeatedly filled with cold water, and emptied, serves as a condenser; the spirit drops into the spoon, and running along the groove is received in a bottle. I considered this alembic as an invention of the natives of this part of America, because I never saw it used in any other place; the general custom of the indians is to content themselves with fermented liquors from the manufactories of the white inhabitants, especially where spirits cannot be purchased.

Spirits are also distilled from an infusion of very ripe bananas in water; this is allowed to ferment, and is strained before it is put into the alembic. Another fermented beverage, as well as spirit, is prepared from the yuca; the root is boiled, reduced to a pulpy substance, and placed in baskets to ferment, in the same manner as the plantains are for the masato; when mixed with water and strained, it is called kiebla, and the spirit distilled from it puichin. The water contained in the coco-nut is also allowed to ferment, but this is seldom drunk, it being considered very unwholesome. Although these people have so many intoxicating liquors, they are not prone to drunkenness.

The food of the inhabitants consists of beef and pork, which is cut into thick slices, salted and smoked. The beef which is fed on gamaloti is good, but that fed on the savanas near to the sea is much better: the hogs are fed on ripe plantains, and become very fat, but the meat is not solid. Fowls are bred in great abundance; they feed well on ripe plantains, and are delicate eating. Besides these, the woods produce game in great abundance. Among the quadrupeds are sainos, tatabras, deer, monkeys, agutis, iguanas, charapas: among the birds, poujis, huacharacas, turkeys, parrots, and wild ducks of several varieties.

The saino, tatabra, and aguti are three varieties of the caira tribe; the first is about two feet high and three feet long, and is slightly covered with coarse black hair; the snout is shorter than that of a pig; it has on its back a soft protuberance, which when opened emits a very offensive musky odour, so much so, that the animal itself rolls about, and places its nose close to the ground, as if to avoid the stench, and its companions immediately desert it. The flesh of this animal, however, is extremely delicate, and by the natives or any other person who has tasted it, it is held in the greatest estimation: to preserve it the natives smoke it in preference to using salt.

The tatabra is smaller than the saino; is very similar to it, but it has no protuberance on its back. The aguti is not so large as a rabbit; it is of a very dark grey colour, and the hind legs are much longer than the fore ones; it generally sits on its haunches like a squirrel, and might be mistaken for one; as well as the other two varieties, however, it has no tail, at least not visible. These two species are easily domesticated, they become very fat, and are good eating.

The monkey which is eaten by the natives is the black long-armed monkey. I objected for a long time to taste it, but seeing the people around me eat it, and hearing them all praise it, I laid aside prejudice, tasted it, and afterwards became so fond of it, that I considered it superior to any kind of meat I had ever eaten. The flesh is similar in colour to mutton, the fat resembles that of pork.

The charapa is a small tortoise, the shell not being above four inches in diameter: the natives generally season all the eatable parts, and put them into the shell, which serves as a stew-pan: the eggs are remarkably delicate, and when stewed with the meat the whole is very savoury.

The natives make use of the lance in killing the saino and tatabra. They usually form parties for the purpose, and never go singly; for although these animals will not attack a man who does not molest them, yet the sainos when provoked are very desperate antagonists, and will attack those who offend them. They make a hollow moaning noise, which leads the natives to their feeding places, when they attack them with their long lances; two or more men stand back to back, surrounded by these poisonous brutes, and kill as many as they judge convenient; they then pierce one on the back, when the rest immediately disperse to avoid the smell. The tatabra is not so furious, and is an easier prey to the huntsman.

During my stay at Esmeraldas I was requested to go into the woods, about a league and a half from the town, to see a great curiosity; not being able to learn what it was, I went, and found the two hind quarters of a full grown jaguar suspended from the trunk of a tree, into which the claws were completely buried; all the fore parts appeared to have been torn away, and fragments of it were scattered on the ground: the sight astonished me, and I was not less surprized at the account which I received from the natives. The jaguar, for the purpose of killing the saino, on which it feeds, rushes on one of a herd, strikes it, and then betakes itself to a tree, which it ascends, and fastening its hind claws into the tree, hangs down sufficiently low to be able to strike the saino with its paws, which having effected in a moment it draws itself up again, to escape being hurt by the enemy. However, it appeared that in this case the jaguar had been incautious, and the saino had caught it by the paw, when the whole herd immediately attacked it, and tore as much of it to pieces as they could reach.

For taking birds the natives use a hollow tube of wood, from five to eight feet long, called a sorbetana, or bodojera, the diameter of the perforation being not more than half an inch; the dart used is called pua, it is about seven or eight inches long, and very slender; at one end a sharp point is cut, and it is notched round so as easily to break off. This point is dipped in some poison, a small quantity of raw cotton is wrapped round the pua, near the point, so as to fill the tube into which it is put; the sportsman then applies his mouth to the tube, gives a smart puff, and the pua is thrown to the distance of a hundred, or a hundred and fifty yards, with an almost unerring certainty against the object marked out, which in a moment falls to the ground and expires. The poison used is brought from Maynas, on the banks of the MaraÑon, where it is procured from a vegetable. It probably owes its poisonous quality to the quantity of prussic acid which it contains, although it does not possess either the taste or odour of that acid. The activity of this poison is so astonishingly great, that I have seen a monkey while jumping from one tree or branch to another, if wounded with the poisoned point of a pua not larger than a fine needle, fall to the ground before it could reach the adjacent bough; and birds as large as turkeys will fall from their perch without being able to throw themselves on the wing. A small black spot is left in the flesh by the poison, but the whole of the meat is uninjured for food.

The natives use this poison as a purgative, and I was assured by several who have taken it, that it operates very mildly; they always take it in the form of a pill, carefully enveloped in a portion of the pulp of the plantain, to prevent the possibility of its touching the gums, or any lacerated part of the body, as death would almost inevitably be the consequence. The only partial antidote known, when by accident a person is wounded, is to eat a considerable quantity of sugar, and to this the sportsmen have recourse after they have been employed for any considerable length of time with the sorbetana, as sometimes a swelling of the lips is produced, which they suppose to be occasioned by inhaling the contaminated air in the tube. As a defensive weapon the sorbetana and poisoned pua are excellent; in the hands of these people they would commit the greatest havoc, because they might be used in an ambuscade or defile, without any noise or report; and the pua being almost invisible in the air, an army ignorant of such missiles might be destroyed in the same manner as a troop of monkeys, when one of which drops the rest immediately flock to the spot, as if to examine the cause, and one after another become the prey of the hunters.

The dexterity with which the sorbetana is used is very great; but the men are trained to it from their earliest infancy. Boys of three or four years old have their tubes of a proportionate size, and use the puas without poison, with which they shoot small birds: they also frequently entertain themselves in the evening with shooting the wasps, which build their nests under the eaves or floors of the houses. I have often been astonished at the extraordinary precision with which the little naked rogues direct the pua.

Although the natives are such expert marksmen, either with their almost unerring throw of the lance, or aim with the sorbetana, they are passionately fond of fire-arms, and will give almost the whole of what they possess for a fowling-piece or musket, and this notwithstanding their want of skill in its use.