Mountain Torrents. 387 



society is expressed in fandangos by night, and in street- 

 fights by day. During onr stay ten of the chief men sat 

 down before forty-seven bottles of porter, and soon after 

 we saw the drunken governor, Antonio Rios, knocked down 

 twice before his own door. With snch an official to aid us 

 in obtaining peons to carry our baggage to Moyobamba, we 

 were detained five days. The second day out, one of the 

 Indians dropped his load and decamped, and two others 

 afterward followed suit. Procuring others, we continued 

 onr toilsome journey on foot, picking our way through 

 the thick forest, climbing over precipitous mountains, and 

 wading across the furious Cachiyacu and its tributaries 

 seventy-five times, generally wnth" the prospect of being 

 torn away by the current. If the traveler should strip in 

 crossing each stream, he would not make a league a day, 

 for the same river must be crossed often several times a 

 day, the path up its banks changing frequently from one 

 side to the other. The interminable Cachiyacu is crossed 

 three times in going half a mile ; and one of its feeders is 

 so fastidious in its course that one must cross it nine times 

 within a mile. The only way is to plunge in accoutred as 

 you are, and change at night. The Indians have to carry 

 the cargo on the head in fording the deeper streams. The 

 character of these streams may be gathered from their 

 names — as Pumayacu, or "Tiger River," and Esealera-yacu, 

 or " Staircase River." The great bowlders strewed along 

 their beds likewise indicate their power at high water. 

 The passage of the Pumayacu is the most perilous of all, 

 and reminds me of the furious Hondache in the Napo. 

 The river has cut for itself a deep, narrow channel through 

 highly inclined beds of slate and sandstone, dipping down- 

 stream. The ford is the slippery edge or crest of a sand- 

 stone ledge, a yard wnde, with a gulf on one side and a 

 whirlpool on the other. After a heavy rain (and when 



