442 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



For years afterwards the solitary shots in the 

 sombre forests of Lake Vasiva used to haunt my 

 memory and my dreams. They were as mysterious 

 to me, although not so alarming, as the single foot- 

 print was to Robinson Crusoe. My ears were 

 always open to some repetition of the sound which 

 might lead to detecting its origin. In April 1857, 

 I was on my voyage up the lonely Pastasa, at the 

 eastern foot of the Andes. My companions were 

 two Spaniards, two whitish lads who acted as our 

 servants, and fourteen Cucama Indians who paddled 

 our two canoes. Five months before, there had 

 been an uprising of the savage Jibaros and Huam- 

 bisas, who had laid waste the Christian villages on 

 the Amazon, below the Pongo de Manseriche, and 

 the only village (Santander) on the Lower Pastasa. 

 We travelled, therefore, in constant risk of being 

 attacked, and were on the alert day and night. 

 The Indians would never go on shore to cook 

 until we had first landed with our arms and ascer- 

 tained that the adjacent forest was clear. One 

 morning we had cooked our breakfast, and were 

 just squatting down, Turkish fashion, around the 

 steaming pots, when what sounded like a gunshot 

 quite near brought us all to our feet. But the 

 Jibaros, we knew, had no firearms, and it at once 

 struck me that it was the identical sound heard on 

 Lake Vasiva. "What and where is that?" I ex- 

 claimed. " I will take you straight to it, if you 

 like," said the old pilot of my canoe ; and accepting 

 his offer, I plunged into the bush with him, and in 

 three minutes reached a heap of debris, like a huge 

 haycock, the remains of a decayed Palm -trunk 

 whose sudden fall it was that had startled us. It 



