JUANA DEL RIO. 



135 



ance was the having inadvertently asked how far we were off from our 

 destination. I would advise no traveller to do this; he is sure to be 

 disappointed; and when he is told (as he will certainly be) that he is 

 near, the miles appear doubly long. The Indians take no account of 

 time or distance. They stop when they get tired, and arrive when God 

 pleases. They live on plantains — roasted, boiled, and fried; and in the 

 way of food, a yucca is their greatest good. Talking with a young 

 Indian, who had a light load and kept up with me very well, I was 

 struck with the comparative value of things. A Londoner, who has 

 been absent for some time from his favorite city, and subjected to some 

 privations on that account, could not have spoken of the elegances and 

 comforts of London with more enthusiasm than my companion spoke 

 of Pueblo Viejo, a settlement of half a dozen Indians, which we were 

 approaching. "There are plantains," said he; "there are yuccas; there 

 is everything" — {Hay platanos, hay yuccas, hay todo) — and I really 

 expected to be surprised and pleased when I arrived at Pueblo Viejo. 

 The town, in fact, consisted of a single hut, with a plantain grove, a 

 small patch of yuccas, and another of sugar-cane. In several places 

 near by, people were felling the trees and forming chacras. The road 

 lay sometimes across and sometimes along these huge trees; and I 

 envied the bare feet and firm step of my companion — feeling that my 

 tired legs and muddy boots might, at any moment, play me a slippery 

 trick, and cost me a broken leg or sprained ancle. 



At eleven, we arrived at Juana del Rio, a settlement of five or six 

 houses, on the right bank of the river, named after the lady of Senor 

 Martins, whom we met at Cucheros. The houses were all shut up, and 

 nobody seemed to be at home. Here we crossed the river, (one hundred 

 yards broad, and smooth and deep,) and walked down the left bank 

 about half a mile to the pueblo of San Antonio del Tingo Maria. 

 Tingo is the Indian term for the junction of two rivers, the Monzon 

 emptying into the Huallaga just above this. The governor, an intelli- 

 gent and modest young man, a former friend of Ijurra, welcomed us 

 cordially, and gave us a capital breakfast of chicken broth. 



