peons promptly shouldered their
burdens, and we, shod with _alpargates_, and with Alpine staff in hand
(more needed here than in Switzerland), followed after, leaving the
governor to sleep inside his mansion, and to eat his lice unmolested. On
a little grassy knoll just outside the town our train halted for a
moment--the Indians to take their fill of chicha, and bid their friends
good-by, and we to call the roll and take an inventory. Our leader was
Isiro, a bright, intelligent, finely-featured, stalwart Indian. He could
speak Spanish, and his comrades acknowledged his superiority with marked
deference. Ten women and children followed us for two days, to relieve
the men of their burdens. Their assistance was not needed in the latter
part of the journey, for our keen appetites rapidly lightened the
provision cans. Starting again, we plunged at once into the forest,
taking a northeasterly course along the left bank of a tributary to the
Coca. The ups and downs of this day's travel of twelve miles were
foreshadowings of what might come in our "views afoot" in South America.
We encamped at a spot the Indians called Maspa. Herndon says: "The
(Peruvian) Indians take no account of time or distance; they stop when
they get tired, and arrive when God pleases."[113] But our Napo
companions measured distance by hours quite accurately, and they always
traveled as far as we were willing to follow. In ten minutes they built
us a booth for the night; driving two crotchets into the ground, they
joined them with a ridge-pole, against which they inclined a number of
sticks for rafters. These they covered with palm-leaves, so adroitly put
together that our roof was generally rain-proof. After ablution and an
entire change of garments, we built a fire, using for fuel a green tree
called _sindicaspi_ (meaning the wood that burns), a special provision
in these damp forests where every thing is dripping with moisture. The
fall of a full-grown tree under the strokes of a Yankee axe was a marvel
in the eyes of our Indians. Our second day's journey was far more
difficult than the first, the path winding up steep mountains and down
into grand ravines, for we were crossing the outlying spurs of the
Eastern Cordillera. Every where the track was slippery with mud, and
often we sank two feet into the mire. How devoutly we did wish that the
Ecuadorian Congress was compelled to travel this horrid road once a
year! At 10 o'clock we reached a lone habitati