A VISIT TO TUB COUNTRY. 363 



San Bernardo, a town four leagues south of the capital. Ho was desirous to show me a bridge 

 over the Maypu, constructed with lassoes and branches of trees, after the ancient Indian method. 

 This bridge is some four or five- miles lower down the river than the one previously mentioned. 

 AH th. -in am In ii is on one side of the wide space which is sometimes washed during floods, 

 ih,. hri'l "-en made only across it, and not from hank to bank; therefore itH length is 



l\ 200 feet. Two chains, whose ends are firmly secured \ the shore, are supported at 

 one third the distances from their extremities by piers of wood some fifteen feet high, imbedded 

 in piles of stone. 15et\veen the uprights the chains hang in curves, to which strips of hi 

 nnei|ual h-n^ilis are last. -ned. supporting stout ropes of the same material drawn tolerably tight 

 from shore to shore. A floor of reeds and brush, of sufficient strength to bear a horseman, 

 being laid across the ropes, is secured to them, and then wattled together. The bridge is safe 

 enough, but the passage of a horseman immediately communicates oscillation not altogether 

 pleasant. Among the aborigines of course there are neither chains nor midway uprights, but 

 only hide ropes between the most elevated natural points; an idea for which engineers of the 

 Old World are indebted to unlettered savages for their airy suspension bridges. 



