THE GARRETE A. 



195 



want of medical attention. I gave the man who had the dysentery- 

 some doses of calomel and opium, (a prescription I had from Dr. Smith, 

 of Lima;) but he died with the last dose. Though solicited, I would 

 have nothing to do with the other case. It was a woman; and I had 

 no confidence in my practice. I could only add my mite to a subscrip- 

 tion raised by the whites for the benefit of her orphan children. 



The Cocamas of Nanta are great fishermen and boatmen, and I 

 think are bolder than most of the civilized tribes on the river. They 

 make incursions, now and then, into the country of the MayorundS — 

 savages who inhabit the right banks of the Ucayali and Amazon — fight 

 battles with them, and bring home prisoners, generally children. When 

 travelling in small numbers, or engaged in their ordinary avocations on 

 the river, they studiously avoid the country of their enemies, who 

 retaliate whenever opportunity offers. 



These Indians are jealous, and punish conjugal infidelity with sever- 

 ity, and also departure from the laws of chastity on the part of the 

 unmarried female. 



Arebalo thinks that the population of the Missions is increasing, and 

 found by the census, taken carefully last year by himself, that the num- 

 ber of women exceeded that of the men by more than one thousand. 



A boat came in from above on the eighteenth, and reported the loss 

 of another belonging to Enrique, one of the traders we had met at 

 Laguna. She was loaded with salt and cotton cloth; and, in passing 

 the mouth of Tigre Yacu in the night, struck upon a " sawyer," cap- 

 sized, and went down. A boy was drowned. Macready would have 

 envied the low, soft, sad tones and eloquent gestures, expressive of pity 

 and horror, with which an Indian told us the disastrous story. 



September 20. — We paid twelve rowers and a popero, and set them 

 to work to fit up our boat with decks and coverings. I had purchased 

 this boat from Mr. Caliper for sixty dollars, the price he paid for it 

 when it was new. Most persons on the river held up their hands when 

 I told them what I had paid for it; but I thought it was cheap, espe- 

 cially as I was obliged to have it on any terms. He had it repaired 

 and calked for us. 



The boat (called garretea) is thirty feet long, seven wide in its widest 

 part, and three deep. The after-part is decked for about ten feet in 

 length with the bark of a palm-tree, which is stripped from the trunk 

 and flattened out by force. The deck is covered over by small poles, 

 bent in hoop-fashion over it, and well thatched with palm-leaves; 

 making quite a snug little cabin. The pilot stands or sits on this roof 

 to direct and steer, and sleeps upon it at night, to the manifest danger 



