The history of South America teems with accounts of arduous marches made by European explorers through its forests or deserts, across its mountains or along the banks of its rivers. Some of these are more widely celebrated than others because the results were greater; but many minor expeditions—some unsuccessful, others serving no practical end—are as worthy of remembrance because those who undertook them went coolly, and with their eyes open, into all manner of privations or dangers, for the sole purpose of advancing their country’s interests.

Among such secondary enterprises is the journey made by Lieutenant Smyth and Midshipman Lowe from Callao to the Amazon, in 1834, an enterprise which recalls some of the splendidly reckless achievements of the Spaniards in the first half of the sixteenth century, or of our own even bolder adventurers in the second half.

While Captain Fitzroy was still surveying the southerly parts of the American continent, H.M.S. Samarang, under Captain Paget, was making a similar though more rapid cruise right round the peninsula from La Guayra to the Bay of Panama. As the ship 120 lay at anchor for observations off the Peruvian coast, the question was raised as to the possibility of the Amazon being converted into a water-way between the Atlantic and the Pacific; and Captain Paget, more in jest than seriously, asked who would volunteer to go ashore, cross the Andes, and find the nearest approach to the main stream of the river. To his amazement, John Smyth, a junior lieutenant, at once offered, and so earnestly did he beg to be allowed to go that the Captain was forced to give way at last. Young Smyth had a good knowledge of Spanish, and was known to be courageous and level-headed; but the difficulty was that not a boat’s crew, not a single seaman, in fact, could be spared to accompany him; but Smyth insisted that he required no protection, and only asked leave to take, as companion, his young cousin, a midshipman named Lowe.

Their knapsacks were soon packed, a cutter took them ashore, and the crew gave them a parting cheer as they turned back to the ship. In Callao Smyth hired five mules, and two Jevero Indians to attend him as muleteers and guides. As becomes direct descendants of the Incas, these were fearless, fine-looking men, industrious and kind-hearted, though by no means the sort of folk one would like to offend. They belonged by birth to Ecuador, which is the chief home of their tribe; but they seemed to know every yard of the country from Colombia to Chile, and from the coast to the Brazilian frontier, and, contrary to the usual custom of their tribe, both spoke Spanish quite well. One part of their costume which very much interested the two sailors was a short length of dried 121 reed which each wore in place of an earring, and fixed to the end of which was the tooth of a slain enemy. But this was the only essentially barbarous decoration they possessed. They were bare-foot and bare-headed, but wore shirts and trousers like ordinary mortals; both, too, were Christians.

At first they assuredly did not flatter whatever vanity the English lads may have possessed, for they would scarcely believe that such youthful-looking persons (Smyth was twenty, and Lowe sixteen) could command the obedience of tried warriors. The question arose through Luis, the younger guide, contrasting the weapons of the two. The middy, after the fashion of the time, wore a dirk, while his cousin, of course, carried a sword. Was it then the custom, asked Luis, for the length of an English warrior’s weapon to depend on his years and fighting experience? With what sort of blade, in that case, did the commandante of a ship fight?

Their opinion improved very much, however, as time went on and as they found these two lads enduring, without a murmur, heat and cold and thirst and fatigue which few white men that they had ever seen could have borne. Perhaps it should be added that their experience of white men was limited to the incorrigible lurchers and beach-combers—most of them of Spanish origin—to be seen anywhere along the South American coast. By the end of the second day they had come to feel quite a fatherly affection for them, so much so that they divulged a secret which, just at that time, might be worth more than its weight in gold to the explorers.

The lieutenant had noticed that, though neither guide showed any disposition to eat or drink “between meals,” they never seemed wearied, nor did they, when supper-time came round, eat with great appetite; this was the more surprising since they walked the greater part of the way, while Smyth and Lowe rode mule-back. On his making a remark about this, Filipe, the elder Indian, opened the satchel in which he carried his various belongings, and displayed a good stock of leaves and a small tin of quick-lime, saying:

“You have just eaten your supper, SeÑor Lieutenante, and cannot judge; to-morrow I will give you some of these to try for yourself.”

During the next morning, after a wearisome climb, Filipe fulfilled his promise; he rolled a few particles of lime in two or three of the leaves, and, pressing the whole into globular form, handed it to Smyth.

“Chew that,” he said. “It is coca, and will sustain you for nearly an hour.”

Smyth had previously noticed both men stuffing something into their mouths periodically, but, being so used to seeing the sailors chew tobacco, he had never given it a second thought. He chewed lustily at the little ball for five minutes, but succeeded in extracting neither taste nor nourishment from it.

“I think I should prefer salt pork,” he said. “What little taste your coca has is beastly; and I am as hungry as I was before.”

“Patience; you have not chewed it long enough.”

He tried again, and presently the Indian said with a smile:

“Well, SeÑor?”

“I don’t know how it is, but I’m losing my hunger. You try it, Frank.—Give my friend one.”

The Jevero shook his head doubtfully.

“It must be a little one, then. It is not good for him. You smoke cigars, and you give some to us; but you do not give him one. With coca it is the same.”

Smyth continued to chew, and was no longer conscious either of hunger or fatigue—for half an hour or more, when both these mortal ills began to return; and of course with double acuteness. He remarked on this to the Indians.

“Ah!” said Luis; “now you know how we can tell the time without a watch, how we know the number of miles we have walked without counting our steps. When you feel to want new coca-leaves, thirty-five minutes have gone by; add the ten minutes during which you found no effect from them, and you observe that three-quarters of an hour has expired. In that time we walk, at the present rate, five miles.” He might have added that, if abused, the coca habit is as pernicious and as degrading as opium-taking.

“It will be five miles no longer now,” said Filipe, interrupting. “Quick; blind the mules, Luis!”

They immediately began to bustle about like seamen in a gale of wind, and, in a few minutes, each of the five mules had a cloth tied over his eyes. There was soon no need to ask why. The slope they had been ascending had become a level strip—literally a strip. To the left of them the sailors saw a sheer wall of rock, rising perhaps a hundred feet, while to the right, not more than eight feet from it, was the edge 124 of a precipice. Used as they both were to overcoming inclinations to giddiness or fear, they shuddered involuntarily as they cast their eyes over the brink and found that they could see no bottom to the abyss. Yet the Jeveros put themselves on the mules’ outer side, one leading a string of three, the other two, and walking heedlessly within a couple of feet of the precipice.

To add to the gruesomeness of the neighbourhood, a weird, wailing cry began to rise from the high ledge above their heads, at the sound of which the Jeveros crossed themselves and mumbled a prayer.

“What is it?” asked the midshipman, not without a little touch of awe.

“Alma perdida!” said Luis, reverently lowering his voice. The words meant “a lost soul,” but the boy was unaware of that, and Smyth did not think a mountain-ledge, such as this, quite the right place to choose for enlightening him. Used to Spanish and now to Indian superstition, he guessed—and rightly—that the cry was that of some bird, probably peculiar to the Andes; and he questioned Filipe, who was walking at his mule’s head.

“Yes; it is a bird. It passes its time in bewailing the dead, and the sins which they have committed.”

“It will have a chance of bewailing its own death,” said the lieutenant peevishly, “as soon as I can get a shot at it,” at which the guides betrayed as much horror as Smyth himself would have shown had they proposed using an albatross as a target.

“What are we going to do if we meet another string of mules along here?” he asked.

“One party must lie down and let the other pass over it,” said Filipe indifferently.

By night-time the severe nerve strain of such a passage was ended, for this ledge at last became a rock-walled mountain-path sloping at quite an easy incline. They were no sooner well along this road the following morning than the guides looked to the loading of the guns, for they said that in the neighbourhood they might expect to meet with black Indians, who were notorious cannibals, and whom it would be their duty to kill. But it happened that none thought it worth while to put in an appearance; the “cannibals” were probably imaginary, though, of course, there are blacks—negroes, not Indians—settled in various parts of the Andes, the descendants of the African slaves introduced by the Spaniards in the sixteenth century to carry packages of gold or silver which the Indians could not or would not carry.

At last the most wonderful mountain-range in the world was crossed. The mules were left at a village, and the two Jeveros had an opportunity of showing that they were as expert on the water as on the mountains. For now they were in Amazonian Peru, and the Huallaga River had to be descended and examined before the sailors’ task was accomplished. In this more easterly forest district of Peru there are, at this day, nearly four hundred thousand Indians, and at that time there were half a million; many of them very degraded, many more warlike and intelligent heathens, and others who led quite peaceable lives as farmers, planters, fishers, or exporters of turtle-oil.

Only once were the sailors in serious danger at the 126 hands of any of these tribes, and that was due not to themselves or to the natives, but to the Jevero guides, both of whom had an ineradicable contempt for all Indian families but their own.

This happened soon after the return journey up the Huallaga had begun. Smyth had expected such an occurrence for some time, for he had more than once been forced to remonstrate with his men for their quarrelsome or jeering attitude towards Indians whom they met and talked with, and who would have been perfectly willing to be friendly and obliging. They came up with a large canoe containing eight Indians who were lying in wait for a manatee. Smyth bade the Jeveros draw up, and entered into conversation with the hunters, who answered civilly, though not without some distrust. Luis and Filipe joined in unasked, and, when it was too late, the lieutenant perceived that they were “chaffing” the strangers. These became more and more angry, and at last refused to answer Smyth, who thereupon, for peace’ sake, told his canoemen to paddle on. They obeyed, but not without a parting jeer which the Englishmen did not understand, but which so incensed the Indian in the bows of the other canoe that he hurled the harpoon which he was holding straight at Luis.

Luis gave a peculiar twist with his paddle, the canoe shot sideways, and the weapon passed harmlessly by him. Filipe picked up the short-barrelled gun that lay at his feet, but, quick to meet all emergencies, Smyth drew a pistol and pointed it at him.

“If you don’t drop it before I count three, I shall fire.”

In English, he added quickly to the midshipman, “Cover Luis, if he tries any games.”

Filipe dropped the gun with a shame-faced little laugh, and Luis showed no disposition either to take revenge for the harpoon, or to back up his friend against their employer.

“Give way, as hard as you can; both of you,” said the lieutenant, watching, with no little concern, the harpoons which were being held in readiness to throw at his canoe. Perhaps one bullet from his gun might have put the whole boat’s crew to flight, but he had the love of fair play and reluctance to kill which has distinguished the majority of British explorers, whether renowned or obscure. He put his pride in his pocket and frankly ran away.

Strangely enough, neither of the Jeveros ever showed any animosity towards him for thus siding with the enemy. When, at length, the parting time came, both pressed keepsakes on the young officers, and then surprised them by holding them by the hands and crying over them like a pair of women.