FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 31 



pretty nearly done up, and on the very day I arrived 

 I was seized with diarrhoea caused probably by 

 drinking the saline waters of the Huallaga. I had 

 scarcely shaken off this when I was taken with 

 influenza, which still holds me. To these inoppor- 

 tune bodily ailments have been added no small 

 mental trouble. You will perhaps have heard in 

 England of the number of adventurers of all 

 nations, but principally English and Americans, 

 who, misled by a false report of gold on the Upper 

 Maranon, went thither seeking it. Many of these 

 had passed the Barra before I arrived there, but I 

 still met several, and amongst them an English 

 sailor who seemed a very quiet fellow, and whom I 

 engaged to accompany me to Peru, thinking that a 

 stout companion like him would be invaluable to 

 me in a country where, as report truly said, there 

 was no law but that of the strongest, and acts of 

 atrocity were of frequent occurrence. I might, with 

 a little more forethought, have considered that a 

 man who had once become imbued with the idea of 

 acquiring riches by some sudden fortune (for I 

 knew he had been a "digger" in Australia) was 

 never likely to take steadily to any work which 

 brought him in but small, though certain, gains ; 

 but I could not tell beforehand what I know now, 

 that my companion had marked by violence 

 course through Peru, and had been in prison at 

 Lima for murder. When we readied Peru, and 

 had consequently passed the limit of any efficient 

 police, his nature began to show itself, and I had 

 proof that he sought occasion to murder me and 

 decamp with the money I carried with me. On tin- 

 way here from Nauta he ill-treated tin- Indians, and 



