A JOURNEY IN ECUADOR 
243 
course of this river we found different clans living in communal 
style in these large houses, similar to the house of the chief, skill- 
ful in weaving cloth and carving figures out of wood, without 
doubt arts from a higher civilization. The custom of removing 
the bones from the head of the dead and then drying and em- 
balming the latter seems confined to the Serranos on the upper 
plateaus, but I saw one of these heads, about the size of an ordi- 
nary ball, with perfect hair and features. This tribe is entirely 
pure, and although most of them understand the Spanish of the 
country, they use their own language among themselves. 
Reaching the head of steam navigation, we again took to bur 
canoes. The river, swollen by recent rains, rushed down at a 
furious rate, and the native boatmen, clinging to roots and over- 
hanging bushes, used vigorously both paddle and pole, shouting 
and babbling to each other louder even than the roar of the water. 
We encountered mostly sedimentary rocks until we reached the 
Sapayo. The bed-rock then was soft and contained fossil shells, 
some of them belonging to the Chico group. A short distance 
up this river the formation changes. Immediately above an 
altered sandstone and slate and then granite and quartz occur. 
In the Sapollite the quartz is gold-bearing, but above it is barren. 
Further above occur the diabase rocks and lavas to the crest of 
the mountains. Outside of the Sapollite and Sapayo Grande the 
rocks are base, gabbro-like, and carry no gold. The float of the 
Sapayo Grande shows crystals of quartz and Brazilian topaz, but 
none of the stones we saw were valuable. 
Having reached the head of canoe navigation on Cayapas river 
and made an examination of the placers there, we built a hut after 
the native fashion and made our second base camp. My plan 
was to cross the cordillera and examine the rocks and topography 
of the country between tlie rivers Cayapas and Santiago. 
We found here an old trail running into the interior across the 
Andes to the town of Cotocachi. No white man had ever gone 
so high u[) the river or attempted the interesting journey across 
the Andes. On account of the heavy rainfall (a)jout 30 inches a 
montli) it is very dillicult to j)reserve negatives, and even cloth- 
ing S(jon becomes mildewed. A great many of my exposures 
were ruined ami most of the negatives were spotted by the damp- 
ness. Thus my photographs are few and im])erfect. 
Leaving all our miscellaneous equipage at this camp, we 
decided to cut our way along the old trail. Never bolbn' in all 
my experience had I encountered such a wealth of vegetable 
