IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 297 



of those poor animals, and still more that of their 

 unfortunate owners, from whom they had been 

 taken by force, and who, in losing perhaps their 

 only mule, had no means left of conveying to 

 market the produce of their industry, and thereby 

 supporting their families, it will not be wondered 

 at that I cursed in my heart all revolutions. Grave 

 indeed must be the motive of complaint which a 

 people can have against its rulers to justify it in 

 taking up arms to obtain redress. 1 



Towards the end of July the weather improved, 

 and in a few sunny days the fruit of the Bark trees 

 made visible advances towards maturity. On the 

 1 3th of August I noticed that the finest capsules 

 were beginning to burst at the base, and on the 

 following day I had all taken off that seemed ripe, 

 gathering them in this way : an Indian climbed the 

 tree, and breaking the panicles gently off, let them 

 fall on sheets spread on the ground to receive them, 

 so that the few loose seeds shaken out by the fall 



1 I may here relate an incident hearing on the same subject. Whilst Dr. 

 Tayloi was bringing up Mr. Cross from Yentanas, a body of some 800 men, 

 \\hose commander I had known at Ambato, arrived from < hiaranda. As 

 uMi.il, they bivouacked at Limon, and when I turned out on the following 



niing, I saw my four Indians prisoners in the hands of the soldiery, and 



one oi them, \\ith his hands tied behind' him and a rope round his body, 

 about to be dragged off towards Yentanas. Among the beasts of burden 

 \\hich accompanied the troops, this poor fellow had recognised his own mule 

 his only mule as dear to him as Sancho's ass was to Sancho, and, \\ith the 

 aid o| his companions, had contrived to abstrai I it during the night and hide 

 it away in tlie forest. In the morning (lie mule was missed, and my Indians 

 wi re immediately denounced as the delinquent., toi the) had been 

 handling the mule the pre\ioiis evening. I confess my indignation \\ 

 that moment at the boiling - point, and I wished for a hundred " Rifle 

 Volunteers" to put the \\hole disorderly rabble to rout. However, I had 

 given up hall my dormitory to the colonel, and had treated him with as much 

 hospitality as lay in my power, so that I had some right to expecl he \M> u ld 

 not deny any rec|ucst of mine ; and accordingly, after a short parley \\ith him, 

 he ordered the Indians to be released. Tim. I kept my Indian.-, ami the 

 Indian kept his mule, which was all we wanted. 



