142 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



manners and with none of the craving selfishness 

 of those people. I had therefore quite a pleasure 

 in offering him such little presents as I had kept in 

 store for that purpose. His wife was a tall young 

 woman with pleasing features, and they had four 

 small children, all ill of catarrhal fever. The 

 Curaca and every one about him were complaining 

 of illness, especially of rheumatic pains, which was 

 not to be wondered at from the wet and mud 

 among which they live at this season. 1 In dry 

 weather the site must be rather pleasant ; the 

 ground is highish, rising from the Puyu, which 

 furnishes water, though it is a good ten minutes' 

 walk to the river and back. When the sky is clear, 

 Mount Tunguragua, with its cope of snow, and the 

 lower wooded ridges in front of it are seen very 

 distinctly. 



The afternoon of the day we arrived was nearly 

 fair, though cloudy and cool ; but at two of the 

 following morning it came on to rain heavily and 

 continued without intermission till midnight. 



Next day (2Oth) drizzling rain from sunrise till 

 nightfall. The sloppy ground, the soaked forest, 

 and the unceasing rain kept us close prisoners. 

 My Indians had been occupied in preparing chicha 

 for the remainder of the journey ; this task was 

 completed, but the weather and the road were so 

 dreadful that we could not think of starting. They 

 declared they were quite out of heart, and they 



1 Shortly after I passed by the Jibaria, Hueleca removed with his family U> 

 Sara-yacu, to consult some noted medicine-man ; there his wife and one of his 

 children died, and I have since learnt that he has burnt down his house and 

 the convent, and that he has removed to some other part of the forest where 

 the whites never pass, for to their contamination he believes that he owes his. 

 bereavement. 



