THE PARAGUA. 



175 



have it, on the ground that it wanted repairs. We were, therefore, 

 obliged to take two small ones that would barely carry the trunks and 

 boxes, and embark ourselves in the canoe of the Portuguese. 



We have found this man, Don Antonio da Costa Viana, and his 

 family, quite a treasure to us on the road. He is a stout, active little 

 fellow, about fifty years of age, with piercing black eyes, long black 

 curls, a face burned almost to negro blackness by the sun, deeply pitted 

 with the small-pox, and with a nose that, as Ijurra tells him, would make 

 a cut- water for a frigate. He is called paragua, (a species of parrot,) 

 from his incessant talk ; and he brags that he is " as well known on the 

 river as a dog." He has a chacra of sugar-cane and tobacco, with a 

 trapiche, at Tarapoto. He sells the spirits that he makes for tocuyo, and 

 carries the tocuyo, tobacco, and chancaca to Nauta, selling or rather ex- 

 changing as he goes. His canoe is fifty feet long and three broad, and 

 carries a cargo which he values at five hundred dollars ; that is, five hun- 

 dred in efectos — two hundred and fifty in money. It is well fitted with 

 armayari and pamacari, and carries six persons — Antonio, himself, his 

 wife, and his adopted daughter, a child of ten years ; besides affording 

 room for the calls of hospitality. My friend is perfect master of all 

 around him ; (a little tyrannical, perhaps, to his family ;) knows all the 

 reaches and beaches of the river, and every tree and shrub that grows 

 upon its banks. He is intelligent, active, and obliging ; always busy : 

 now twisting fishing-lines of the fibres of a palm called chambora ; now 

 hunting turtle-eggs, robbing plantain-fields, or making me cigars of 

 tobacco-leaves given me by the priest of Chasuta. Every beach is a 

 house for him ; his peons build his rancho and spread his musqui'to 

 curtain ; his wife and child cook his supper. His mess of salt fish, turtle- 

 eggs, and plantains, is a feast to him ; and his gourd of coffee, and pipe 

 afterwards, a luxury that a king might envy. He is always well and 

 happy. I imagine he has picked up and hoarded away, to keep him in 

 his old age, or to leave his wife when he dies, some few of the dollars 

 that are floating about here ; and, in short, I don't know a more enviable 

 person. It is true Dona Antonia gets drunk occasionally; but he licks 

 her if she is troublesome, and it seems to give him very little concern. 



I sometimes twit him with the immorality of robbing the poor In- 

 dians of their plantains ; but he defends himself by saying, "That to take 

 plantains is not to steal ; to take a knife, or a hatchet, or an article ol 

 clothing, is ; but plantains, not. Every body on the river does it. It is 

 necessary to have them, and he is perfectly willing to pay for them, if 

 he could find the owners and they would sell them." The old rascal is 

 very religious, too ; he has, hanging under the pamacari of his boat, a 



