248 THE COLLAHUAYAS. Chap. XV. 



sata, and Quirbe ; and their knowledge of the virtues of herbs 

 has been handed down from father to son from time imme- 

 morial. Tliey traverse the forests of Bolivia and Caravaya 

 collecting their drugs ; and then set out as professors of the 

 healing art, to exercise their calling in all parts of America, 

 frequently being two and three years away from their homes, 

 on these excursions. With their wallets of drugs on their 

 backs, and dressed in black breeches, a red poncho, and 

 broad-brimmed hat, they walk in a direct line from village to 

 village, exercising their calling, and penetrating as far as 

 Quito and Bogota in one direction, and to the extreme limits 

 of the Argentine Eepublic in the other. Their ancestors did the 

 same in the time of the Incas, and Garcilasso de la Vega gives 

 some account of the medical treatment adopted by the ancient 

 Peruvian physicians. They were in the habit of letting blood 

 and purging, they administered the powdered leaf of the 

 sayri (tobacco) for headaches, mulli (Schinus molle) for 

 wounds, and a host of other simple herbs for otlier ailments. 

 Both Garcilasso* and Acosta^ mention their knowledge of the 

 virtues of sarsaparilla, yet it is remarkable that the Collahuayas 

 should never have discovered the febrifugal qualities of chin- 

 chona bark. 



We saluted these hard-working physicians, and then 

 entered the forest from which they had just emerged. A short 

 walk brought us to the river Challuma,^ a tributary of the 

 Tambopata, which we waded across. Martinez told me that 

 this was the extreme point reached by Dr. Weddell, and that 

 he came here to see a tree of C. micrantha growing. 



Beyond the Challuma there is no road at all, and the really 

 serious forest w^ork began ; two hornets stinging me on the 

 temple and back of the neck, as I forced my way through 

 the first bush. Martinez went in front as pioneer, clearing 



' Com. Real. i. lib. viii. cap. 15. I ^ Not, of course, the famous gokl- 



* Lib. iv. cap. 29. | bearing river of the same name. 



