PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF ORTON AND PERU. 137 
shelter and still rising. There was danger. The water invaded our hut; it was 
eighteen inches deep. We were alarmed. It was time. We drew on our boots 
and stepped down into the water. We piled our eight trunks together and held 
them down with poles to keep them from floating away. Only two trunks were 
above water. The storm ceased—the darkness was intense. We stood in three 
feet of water. We looked death squarely in the face. We talked of home, fam- 
ily, friends. We gave up all for lost. Huge trees swept by us. The tigers 
growled, the tapirs bellowed, the monkies chattered, the birds uttered notes of 
alarm. From the opposite bank masses of earth with portions of the forest went 
down in the flood. After five hours daylight came. Wecould see no land. A 
shout was heard, another and another, but in what direction we could not tell. 
We answered at random. Two hours later shouts were again heard, and this time 
from up the river, and in the distance among the floating debris could be seen the 
heads of swimming men. They touched bottom and waded to us—a score of 
. Yuracare Indians, great powerful fellows. Never were happier men than ourselves. 
They were friends; we were saved. 
From the Coni to the Chimoré, Indian women carried our trunks, each 100 
pounds—nine miles for 2oc each. 
May 3rd, 1877, We embarked on the Chimoré River in two canoes, paddled 
by thirteen Indians. Here the current was swift, with many rapids; banks four 
feet high and crowded to the very edge with the dense tropical forest, so that the 
river seemed hemmed in by two immense walls of living green. Silently each In- 
dian bid ‘‘ good bye” with a pressure of the hand, and took his seat in the ca- 
noe, placing his bow and bundle of arrows by hisside. ‘The tears coursed down 
the cheek of more than one Indian wife; we pushed out into the stream; the 
paddlers bent to their work; the canoe rose and fell in rythmic response to each 
united pressure of the paddles; we moved almost with the speed of the arrow, 
and began our voyage of 300 miles. By two o’clock, not a mountain nor a hill 
was visible. ‘Time down to Trinidad six days—time back up stream, twenty 
days. In four days we found the river as large as the Missouri, with soundings 
of thirty to seventy feet. We camped each night upon a sand bar to be safe from 
night attack of hostile indians—Los Salvajes, as our Yuracare captain told us in 
Spanish. 
(Zo be continued.) 
