THE PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA. 390 



being swept away by it. The mules carried our manuscripts, 

 our dried plants, and all the other objects which we had been 

 a whole year engaged in collecting; therefore, every time 

 that we crossed the stream, we stood on one of the banks in a 

 state of anxious suspense until the long train of our beasts of 

 burthen, eighteen or twenty in number, were fairly out of 

 danger. 



This same Rio de Guancabamba, which in the lower part of 

 its course has many foils, is the channel for a curious mode of 

 conveying correspondence from the coast of the Pacific. For 

 the expeditious transmission of the few letters that are sent 

 from Truxillo to the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, they 

 are despatched by a swimming courier, or, as he is called by 

 the people of the country, " el correo que nada." This courier, 

 who is usually a young Indian, swims in two days from 

 Pomahuaca to Tomependa; first proceeding by the Rio de 

 Chamaya, (the name given to the lower part of the Rio de 

 Guancabamba) and then by the Amazon river. The few 

 letters of which he is the bearer, he carefully wraps in a 

 large cotton handkerchief, which he rolls round his head in 

 the form of a turban. On arriving at those parts of the 

 rivers in which there are falls or rapids, he lands, and goes by 

 a circuitous route through the woods. When wearied by 

 long- continued swimming, he rests by throwing one arm on 

 a plank of a light kind of wood of the family of the Bombacea?, 

 called by the Peruvians Ceiba, or Palo de balsa. Sometimes 

 the swimming courier takes with him a friend to bear him 

 company. Neither troubles himself about provisions, as they 

 are always sure of a hospitable reception in the huts which 

 are surrounded by abundant fruit-trees in the beautiful Huer- 

 tas of Pucara and Cavico. 



Fortunately, the river is free from crocodiles, which are first 

 met with in the upper course of the Amazon, below the 

 cataract of Mayasi; for the slothful animal prefers to live 

 in the more tranquil waters. According to my calculation, 



