Through the Wildeeness. 191 



palm-like appearance, but with ronglier stems and a nsnal 

 height of fifty feet. Plants akin to our " scouring rush" 

 rise twenty-five feet. We saw to-day the " water tree," or 

 huadhuas of the natives, a kind of bamboo, w^iich some- 

 times yields between the joints two quarts of clear, taste- 

 less water. Late in the evening w^e reached an old rancho 

 called Curi-iiTGu (" the mountain of gold") ; but we had 

 traveled so far ahead of our cargo-train we did not see it 

 again till the next morning. We were obliged, therefore, 

 to sleep on the ground in our wet clothes, and put up with 

 hard commons — half parched corn, which our Indian guides 

 gave us, and unleavened cakes or flour-paste baked on the 

 coals. Thence, after a short day's journey of ten miles, we 

 arrived at Archidona, by a path, however, that was slippery 

 with a soft yellow clay. We were a sorry-looking com- 

 pany, soaked by incessant rains, exhausted by perspiration, 

 plastered with mud, tattered, and torn ; but we were kindly 

 met by the Jesuit bishop, who took us to his own habita- 

 tion, where one Indian washed our feet, and another pre- 

 pared a most refi'eshing drink of guayusa tea. We then 

 took up our quarters at the Government House, opposite 

 the bishop's, sojourning several days on account of our swol- 

 len feet, and also on account of a swollen river which ran 

 between us and the ]S"apo. Here we made a valuable col- 

 lection of birds, lizards, fishes, and butterflies. 



Archidona is situated in a beautiful plain on the high 

 northern bank of the Misagualli, two thousand feet above 

 the Atlantic. The site is a cleared spot in the heart of an 

 almost boundless forest ; and it was a relief, not easily con- 

 ceived, to emerge from beneath the dense leafy canopy into 

 this open space and look up to the sky and to the snowy 

 Andes. The climate is uniform and delightful, the mean 

 annual temperature being seventy-seven degrees. Sand- 

 flies, howevei*, resembling our " punkies," abound ; and tlic 



