te
part when the hair is properly singed."]

To all this Edwards, who had kindly accompanied us down the river thus
far, added, with frightful gestures, that he purposed to report him to
the Quito government. After this bombardment Sandoval was another man,
and the two canoes and four Indians we wanted were forthcoming. We had
to wait, however, two days for the Indians to prepare their chicha for
the journey and to cover the canoes with palm awnings. The price of a
canoe for the Maranon is twenty-five varas of lienzo, and the same for
each Indian. Unfortunately we had only fifty varas left; but, through
the influence of the now good-natured alcalde, we induced the Indians to
take the balance in coin. After many delays, we put our baggage into
one canoe, and ourselves into the other, and pushed off into the rapid
current of the Napo. We had three styles of valediction on leaving. Our
Indian quartet, after several last drinks of chicha, bade their friends
farewell by clasping hands, one kissing the joined hands, and then the
other. Sandoval muttered _adios_ in reply to ours, meaning, no doubt,
good riddance, while we shouted a hearty good-bye to Edwards as he
pushed his way up stream to continue his lonely but chosen Indian life
on the banks of the Yusupino.

The Napo at Santa Rosa runs at least five miles an hour, and we were
soon picking our way--now drifting, now paddling--through a labyrinth of
islands and snags. The Indians, so accustomed to brutal violence from
the hands of the whites, had begged of us, before our departure, that we
would not beat them. But shortly after we left, one of them, who was
literally filled with chicha, dropped his paddle and tumbled into a heap
at the bottom of the canoe, dead drunk. Pratt, our gigantic Mississippi
boatman, whom we had engaged at Quito as captain and cook down the
river, and who was an awful Goliath in the eyes of the red-skins, seized
the fellow and gave him a terrible shaking, the like of which was never
seen or heard of in all Napo. At once the liquor left the muddled brain
of the astonished culprit, and, taking his paddle, he became from that
hour the best of the crew. This was the only case of discipline on the
voyage. Always obsequious, they obeyed us with fear and trembling. None
of them could speak Spanish, so we had provided ourselves with a
vocabulary of Quichua. But some English words, like the imperative
_paddle_! were more effective than the tongue of the In