HIDDEN TREASURE 509 



The mines of Llanganati, after having been 

 neglected for half a century, are now being sought 

 out again with the intention of working them ; but 

 there is no single person at the present day able to 

 employ the labour and capital required for success- 

 fully working a silver mine, and mutual confidence 

 is at so low an ebb in this country that companies 

 never hold together long. Besides this, the gold of 

 the Incas never ceases to haunt people's memories ; 

 and at this moment I am informed that a party of 

 explorers who started from Tacunga imagine they 

 have found the identical Green Lake of Llanganati, 

 and are preparing to drain it dry. If we admit the 

 truth of the tradition that the ancients smelted gold 

 in Llanganati, it is equally certain that they extracted 

 the precious metal in the immediate neighbourhood ; 

 and if the Socabon of Valverde cannot at this day 

 be discovered, it is known to every one that gold 

 exists at a short distance, and possibly in consider- 

 able quantity, if the Ecuacloreans would only take 

 the trouble to search for it and not leave that task 

 to the wild Indians, who are content if, by scooping 

 up the gravel with their hands, they can get together 

 enough gold to fill the quill which the white man 

 has given them as the measure of the value of the 

 axes and lance-heads he has supplied to them on 

 trust. 



The gold region of Canelos begins on the 

 extreme east of the map of Guzman, in streams rising 

 in the roots of Llanganati and flowing to the Pastasa 

 and Curaray, 1 the principal of which are the Bom- 

 bonasa and Villano. These rivers and their smaller 

 tributaries have the upper part of their course in 



1 The name Curaray itself may l>e <l<Ti\vl from ''am," i^'ild. 



