age 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