tering the Napo for twenty years. The Napo region, under proper
cultivation, would yield the most valuable productions of either
hemisphere in profusion. But agriculture is unknown; there is no word
for plow. The natives spend most of their time in idleness, or feasting
and hunting. Their weapons are blow-guns and wooden spears; our guns
they call by a word which signifies "thunder and lightning." Laying up
for the future or for commerce is foreign to their ideas. The houses are
all built of bamboo tied together with lianas, and shingled with leaves
of the sunipanga palm. The Indians are peaceful, good-natured, and idle.
They seldom steal any thing but food. Their only stimulants are chicha,
guayusa, and tobacco. This last they roll up in plantain leaves and
smoke, or snuff an infusion of it through the nose from the upper bill
of a toucan. "The Peruvians (says Prescott, quoting Garcilasso) differ
from every other Indian nation to whom tobacco was known by using it
only for medicinal purposes in the form of snuff." There is no bread on
the Napo; the nearest approach to flour is yuca starch. There are no
clocks or watches; time is measured by the position of the sun. The mean
temperature at Napo village is about one degree warmer than that of
Archidona. Its altitude above the sea is 1450 feet. The nights are cool,
and there are no musquitoes; but sand-flies are innumerable. Jiggers
also have been seen. There are no well-defined wet and dry seasons; but
the most rain falls in May, June, and July. The lightning, Edwards
informed us, seldom strikes. Dysentery, fevers, and rheumatism are the
prevailing diseases; and we saw one case of goitre. But the climate is
considered salubrious. Few twins are born; and there are fewer children
than in Archidona--a difference ascribed by some to the exposure of the
Napo people in gold washing; by others to the greater quantity of
guayusa drunk by the Archidonians.

[Footnote 116: Sometimes called _yuca dulce_, or sweet yuca, to
distinguish it from the _yuca brava_, or wild yuca, the mandioca of the
Amazon, from which farina is made. The yuca is the beet-like root of a
little tree about ten feet high. It is a good substitute for potatoes
and bread.]

[Footnote 117: Vanilla belongs to the orchid family, and is the only
member which possesses any economical value. It is a graceful climber
and has a pretty star-like flower.]

[Footnote 118: In Peru, the liquor made from yuca is called _mas