12 THE ANDES OF SOUTHERN PERU 



mal trails until, late in the day, famished and thirsty, we came 

 upon a little clearing on a sand-bar, the hut of La Sama, who 

 knew the Machigangas and their villages. 



After our long day's work we had fish and yuca, and water 

 to which had been added a little raw cane sugar. Late at night 

 La Sama returned from a trip to the Indian villages down river. 

 He brought with him a half-dozen Machiganga Indians, boys and 

 men, and around the camp fire that night gave us a dramatic ac- 

 count of his former trip down river. At one point he leaped to 

 his feet, and with an imaginary pole shifted the canoe in a swift 

 rapid, turned it aside from imminent wreck, and shouting at the 

 top of his voice over the roar of the water finally succeeded in 

 evading what he had made seem certain death in a whirlpool. We 

 kept a fire going all night long for we slept upon the ground with- 

 out a covering, and, strange as it may appear, the cold seemed in- 

 tense, though the minimum thermometer registered 59° F. The 

 next morning the whole party of ten sunned themselves for nearly 

 an hour until the flies and heat once more drove them to shelter. 



Eeturning to camp next day by a different route was an experi- 

 ence of great interest, because of the light it threw on hidden trails 

 known only to the Indian and his friends. Slave raiders in former 

 years devastated the native villages and forced the Indian to con- 

 ceal his special trails of refuge. At one point we traversed a 

 cliff seventy-five feet above the river, walking on a narrow ledge 

 no wider than a man's foot. At another point the dim trail ap- 

 parently disappeared, but when we had climbed hand over hand 

 up the face of the cliff, by hanging vines and tree roots, we came 

 upon it again. Crossing the river in the canoe we had used the 

 day before, we shortened the return by wading the swift Chi- 

 rumbia waist-deep, and by crawling along a cliff face for nearly an 

 eighth of a mile. At the steepest point the river had so under- 

 cut the face that there was no trail at all, and we swung fully fif- 

 teen feet from one ledge to another, on a hanging vine high above 

 the river. 



After two days' delay we left Eosalina late in the afternoon 

 of August 7. My party included several Machiganga Indians, La 



