222 



THE YAGrUAS. 



sleeping off the effects of the masato ; and the patient, much-enduring 

 women at work twisting chambira for hammocks, or preparing yuccas 

 or plantains to make drink for their lords. We could get nothing, 

 except a hammock or two, and some twisted chambira to make me a 

 lead line. The Indians had hidden their hammocks ; and we had to 

 go poking about with our sticks, and searching in corners for them. 

 The reason of this was that most of them owe the padre ; and this pay- 

 ing of debts seems as distasteful to the savage man as to the civilized. 



The only article of manufacture is a coarse hammock, made of the 

 fibres of the budding top of a species of palm, called chambira in Peru, 

 and tucum in Brazil. The tree is very hard, and is defended with long 

 sharp thorns, so that it is a labor of a day to cut a "Cogollo," or top ; 

 split the leaves into strips of convenient breadth ; and strip off the fibres, 

 which are the outer covering of the leaves, and which is done very dex- 

 terously with the finger and thumb. A "top" of ordinary size yields 

 about half a pound of fibres ; and when it is reflected that these fibres 

 have to be twisted, a portion of them dyed, and then woven into ham- 

 mocks of three or lour pounds weight, it will be seen that the Indian 

 is very poorly paid for his labor when he receives for a hammock 

 twelve and a half cents in silver, or twenty-five cents in efectos. 



The women twist the thread with great dexterity. They sit on the 

 ground, and, taking two threads, which consist of a number of minute 

 fibres, between the finger and thumb of the left hand, they lay them, 

 separated a little, on the right thigh. A roll of them down the thigh, 

 under the right hand, twists each thread ; when, with a scarcely per- 

 ceptible motion of the hand, she brings the two together, and a roll up 

 the thigh makes the cord. A woman will twist fifty fathoms about 

 the size of a common twine in a day. 



The Indians brought me some few birds ; but they were too drunken 

 and lazy to go out into the forest to hunt rare birds, and only brought 

 me those that they could shoot about their houses. 



The climate of San Jose is very agreeable. It seems drier and more 

 salubrious than that of Pebas ; and there are fewer musquitoes. The 

 atmosphere was very clear for the two nights I spent there ; and I 

 thought I could see the smaller stars with more distinctness than I had 

 seen them for a long time. 



The history of the settlement of this place is remarkable, as showing 

 the attachment of the Indians to their pastor and their church. 



Some years ago, Padre " Jose de la Rosa Alva" had established a 

 mission at a settlement of the Yaguas, about two days' journey to the 

 northward and eastward of the present station, which he called Sta. 



