124 IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



gone to swell the ranks of victims exacted by the lust of the 

 conquerors. 



The forested zone, beginning at eight thousand feet on 

 the ridge we had just traversed, gradually extends its limits 

 downward as one goes farther north, until at Peque it 

 reached as low as five thousand feet in the deeper and well- 

 watered ravines; and, as previously stated, at Puerto Val- 

 divia it reaches the very edge of the Cauca. 



One day an inhabitant of Tabacal rushed into our room 

 and begged me to show him the wonderful diamond ring 

 he said I wore while in his village; he had been away at 

 the time, so had not seen it, but tales had reached his ears 

 upon his return of the marvellous brilliancy of the stone 

 which lighted up the whole street as we walked along. At 

 first I wondered from what sort of an hallucination the 

 man was suffering, for neither my companion nor myself 

 carried any diamonds with us; finally I remembered that, 

 in trying to find our way through the street at Tabacal, 

 we had used a small electric flash-light to avoid falling 

 over the pigs or into the mud- wallows; whereupon I 

 demonstrated its mysterious powers to him, and he started 

 back on his two days' walk a better-informed but never- 

 theless a most-disappointed man. 



A stream of clear, cold water flows around one side of 

 the hill upon which Peque stands, and to this we went 

 nightly for a swim. Don Julian could not quite believe 

 us when we told him of the purpose of our nocturnal prowls ; 

 so one night he accompanied us to the stream and, wonder 

 of wonders, we actually did go into the water. I invited 

 him to join us, but he said: "No, such a thing is unheard 

 of; and, besides, an Indian is just like a cat; when either 

 one gets wet it dies !" 



When the half-breed porters who were to carry the equip- 

 ment finally had their charque and jarepas all ready, they 

 shouldered their packs and started for the mountains. As 

 there was no trail, an additional man was engaged to go 

 in advance and clear an opening with his machete. 



