direction of the calisaya groves, induced him to forsake the bed of
the Cconi, and strike south-eastwardly, so as to cross the Ollachea
and the Ayapata.

"But the mountains are disappearing," hazarded Mr. Marcoy. "Will not
the cinchonas disappear with them?"

"Oh," answered the majordomo, like a pedagogue to a confident
school-boy, "the senor knows better how to put ink or color on a sheet
of paper than how to judge of these things. The plain, the _campo
llano_, is far enough to the east. Before we should see the
disappearance of the mountains, we should have to cross as many hills
and ravines as we have left behind us."

"What do you think of doing, then?" naturally demanded Marcoy, who had
long since begun to feel that the expedition had but one chief, and
that was the sepia-colored cascarillero from Bolivia,

"Everything and nothing," answered Eusebio.

These enigmas always carry the day. The apparatus of march was
once more set in motion toward the adjacent water-sheds. After a
considerable journey--rewarded, it must be said, with a succession of
cinchona discoveries--they halted near a clearing in the forest, where
large heaps of stones and pebbles, arranged in semicircles, attracted
their attention. The cascarilleros explained this appearance as due
to former arrangements for gold-washing in an old river-bed, the San
Gavan or the Ayapata, that had now changed its locality.

While examining the unusual appearance an abominable clamor burst from
the woods around, and a band of Siriniris appeared, led by a lusty
ruffian crowned with oriole feathers, whom the travelers recognized as
having been among their previous acquaintances.

The encounter was very disagreeable, but the strangers determined to
make the best of it. The manner of this band of Indians was somewhat
different from that of the others. They brought nothing for barter,
and had an indescribably coarse and hardy style of behavior.

The travelers determined to buy a little information, if nothing
better, with their knives and fish-hooks. Garcia was accordingly
instructed to demand the meaning of the heaps and causeways of stones.
The savages laughed at first, but finally informed the visitors that
the constructions which puzzled them so had been made by people of
their own race many years ago, for the purpose of gathering gold from
the river which used to run along there, but which now flowed seven
miles off.

This information was dear to the h