198 Thk Andes and the Amazon. 



proach to flour is yuca starch. There are no clocks or 

 watches ; time is measured by the position of the sun. The 

 mean temperature at Napo village is about one degree 

 warmer than that of Archidona. Its altitude above the 

 sea is 1450 feet. The nights are cool, and there are no 

 musquitoes ; but sand-flies are innumerable. Jiggers also 

 have been seen. There are no well-defined wet and dry 

 seasons ; but the most rain falls in May, June, and July. 

 The lightning, Edwards informed us, seldom strikes. Dys- 

 entery, fevers, and rheumatism are the prevailing diseases ; 

 and we saw one case of goitre. But the climate is consid- 

 ered salubrious. Few twins are born ; and there are fewer 

 childi-en than in Archidona — a difference ascribed by some 

 to the exposure of the Napo people in gold washing ; by 

 others to the greater quantity of guayusa drunk by the 

 Archidonians. 



The Kapo is the largest river in the republic. From its 

 source in the oriental defiles of Cotopaxi and Sincholagua 

 to its embouchure at the Maranon, its length is not far 

 from eight hundred miles, or about twice that of the Sus- 

 quehanna.* From Napo village to the mouth of the river 

 our barometer showed a fall of a thousand feet. At Napo 

 the current is six miles an hour ; between Napo and Santa 

 Rosa there are rapids ; and between Santa Eosa and the 

 Maranon the rate is not less than four miles an hour. At 

 Napo the breadth is about forty yards ; at Coca the main 

 channel is fifteen hundred feet wide ; and at Camindo it 



* Its actual source is the Rio del Valle, which runs northward through the 

 Valle Vicioso. Its longest tributaiy, the Curaray, rises only a few miles to the 

 south in the Cordillera de los Mulatos. The two rivers run side by side 4° 

 of longitude before meeting. Coca, the northern branch, originates in the 

 ilanks of Cayambi. The Napo and its branches are represented incorrectly 

 in eveiy map we have examined. The Aguarico is confounded with the 

 Santa Maria and made too long, and the Curaray is represented too far above 

 the mouth of the Napo. There are no settlements between Coca and Ca- 

 mindo. 



