e Department is a
swindle. If you "pay through" you will find on your arrival home that
your letters have been paid at both ends. Ask our consul at Guayaquil to
forward them.

[Footnote 186: The Guayaquil market is well supplied with fish of a fair
quality. Usually the fish of warm tropical waters are poor, but the cold
"Humboldt current," which passes along the west coast of Ecuador,
renders them as edible as those of temperate zones.]

[Footnote 187: Called _chancaca_ in Peru. In flavor it is very nearly
equal to maple-sugar.]

The necessary preparations for the Napo journey have been given in a
previous chapter (Chap. XI). We might add to the list a few cans of
preserved milk from New York, for you will not see a drop between the
Andes and the Atlantic. Fail not to take plenty of lienzo; you must have
it to pay the Indians, and any surplus can be sold to advantage. A bale
of thirty varas costs about five dollars. Rely not at all on game; a
champion sharpshooter could not live by his rifle. Santa Rosa and Coca
will be represented to you as small New Yorks; but you will do well if
you can buy a chicken between them.

From Quito to Papallacta, two days and a half; riding beast, $2 silver,
and $1 20 for each cargo of three arrobas. At Papallacta hire Indians
for Archidona; each carries three arrobas, and wants $5 silver in
advance. You take to your feet; time, nine days, including one day of
rest at Baeza. At Archidona you take a new set of peons for Napo at
twenty-five cents apiece; time, one day. From Napo down the river to
Santa Rosa, one day. You give two and a half varas of lienzo to each
Indian, and the same for the canoe. From Santa Rosa to Pebas, on the
Maranon, fifteen days; cost of an Indian, twenty-five varas; ditto for a
canoe. We advise you to stop at Coca and rig up a raft or craft of some
kind; we ascribe our uninterrupted good health to the length and breadth
of our accommodations. The Peruvian steamer from the west arrives at
Pebas on the sixteenth of each month; fare to Tabatinga, $15 gold; time,
four days; running time, eleven hours. Brazilian steamer leaves
Tabatinga the twentieth of each month; fare to Manaos, $44 44 gold;
time, five days; distance, one thousand miles. From Manaos to Para, $55
55 gold; time, six days; distance, one thousand miles. The Brazilian
steamers make semi-monthly trips. We found two hotels in Para--the
"Italiana," dear and poor; the "Diana," unpretending but comfortable.