de, and our governor's wife and
babe, accompanied us down to the Maranon. They were going after a load
of salt for Sandoval. The girl was a graceful paddler, and had some
well-founded pretensions to beauty. Her coarse, black hair was simply
combed back, not braided into plaits as commonly done by the Andean
women. All, both male and female, painted their faces with achote to
keep off the sand-flies.

[Illustration: Our Craft on the Napo.]

[Footnote 126: Bates says the Mundurucus express surprise by making a
clicking sound with their teeth, and Darwin observes that the Fuegians
have the habit of making a chuckling noise when pleased.]

[Footnote 127: The like perfect equality exists among the Fuegian
tribes. "A piece of cloth given to one is torn into shreds and
distributed, and no one individual becomes richer than
another."--_Darwin_.]

Pratt managed the helm (the governor could not work the Yankee notion)
and the kitchen. At Santa Rosa we had added to our Quito stock of
provisions some manati-lard (bottled up in a joint of a bamboo) and
sirup, and at Coca we took in three fowls, a bag of rice, and a bunch of
bananas. So we fared sumptuously every day. We left Coca on Thanksgiving
Day, November 28th, and to imitate our distant friends, we sacrificed an
extra meal--fricasseed chicken, jerked beef, boiled yucas, bananas,
oranges, lemonade, and guayusa. Favored by a powerful current and the
rhythmic paddling of our Santa Rosans, we made this day sixty miles; but
our average daily run was fifty miles. The winds (doubtless the trades)
were almost unchangeably from the east; but an occasional puff would
come from the northwest, when we relieved our paddlers by hoisting a
blanket for a sail. Six o'clock was our usual hour of departure, and ten
or twelve hours our traveling time, always tying up at a plaia or
island, of which there are hosts in the Napo, but never to the main
land, for fear of unfriendly Indians and the still more unwelcome tiger.
Our crew encamped at a respectful though hailing distance.

On the second day from Coca we were caught in a squall, and to save our
roof we ran ashore. Nearly every afternoon we were treated to a shower,
accompanied by a strong wind, but seldom by thunder and lightning,
though at Coca we had a brilliant thunder-storm at night. They always
came after a uniform fashion and at a regular hour, so that we learned
when to expect them. About noon the eastern horizon would become
sudd