ed as beasts of burden, and the third were valuable
principally for their hair and hides.

The river was now left behind; but this caused the travellers no
inconvenience, for the mountains which they were ascending, were most of
them snow-capped, and tiny rivulets of ice-cold water, formed by the
melting snow, were frequently met with, so that they were at no loss for
water wherewith to quench their thirst. But as they pressed on,
climbing ever higher and higher, they began to suffer very severely,
first from cold, and next from mountain sickness, due to the steadily
increasing rarefaction of the atmosphere. Vilcamapata, however, had a
remedy for both evils, for he killed three alpacas and stripped off
their skins to serve as wraps for himself and his companions, to protect
them from the cold; while, as soon as the first symptoms of mountain
sickness declared themselves, he produced from his pouch a quantity of
leaves of the marvellous coca, and bade the Englishmen chew them, which
they did; whereupon not only did the sickness disappear, but they felt
no further need of food, while their strength was restored to them in a
manner that seemed absolutely miraculous. It cost them three days of
arduous labour to cross this mountain range; but the evening of the
third day found them once more encamped in the tropical forest beside a
tiny stream that flowed to the southward and eastward, while, on the
farther side, the valley sloped away into a still deeper depression.

Six days later, having meanwhile traversed about a hundred miles of
stifling tropical forest, travelling all the while in a due southerly
direction, and having crossed two important streams running in an
easterly direction, to say nothing of numberless rivulets, they came to
the bank of a third stream, also running almost due east; and here
Vilcamapata announced that it would be necessary to build a canoe, as he
now proposed to take to the water again. Upon Stukely pointing out to
him that this river, like those others that they had recently crossed,
flowed east, whereas he understood that their own route lay to the
southward, the Peruvian replied that such was certainly the case; but
that although the river which they had now reached ran eastward, it
eventually discharged into another, by travelling up which they would in
process of time come very near to their destination; and that although
the distance which they would have to travel by water was very mu