FATHER LORENTE. 



203 



which was accordingly done. He gave it the name of the officiating 

 priest, writing it on a bit of paper and giving it to the mother, who put 

 it away carefully. I believe my companion was upbraided by the 

 priest at Sarayacu for doing so. The head of the infant had been 

 bound in boards, front and rear, and was flattened and increased in 

 height. I do not observe that the heads of the adults bear any trace of 

 this custom. 



October 15. — Arrived at the village of Tierra Blanca, belonging to the 

 Mission, having passed yesterday several settlements of the Indians, and 

 seen for the first time the hills in the neighborhood of Sarayacu. It is 

 a clean little town, of two hundred inhabitants, situated on an eminence 

 on the left bank about twenty-five feet above the present level of the 

 river. In the full the water approaches within a few feet of the lower 

 houses. 



A priest from Sarayacu, "Father Juan de Dios Lorente," has charge 

 of the spiritual and pretty much of the temporal concerns of the village. 

 He is here at this time, celebrating some feast, and is the only white man 

 present. The Indians, as usual at a feast time, were nearly all drunk, 

 and made my men drunk also. When I wished to start, I sent Ijurra 

 to a large house where they were drinking, to bring our people to the 

 boat ; he soon came back foaming with rage, and demanded a gun, that 

 he might bring them to obedience ; I soothed him, however, and went 

 up to the house, w T here, by taking a drink with them, and practising the 

 arts that I have often practised before in getting off to the ship refractory 

 sailors who were drinking on shore, I succeeded in getting off a sufficient 

 number of them to work the boat, and shoved off with as drunken a 

 boat's crew as one could desire, leaving the small boat for the others to 

 follow ; this they are sure to do when they find that their clothes and 

 bedding have been taken away. The padre said that if Ijurra had shot 

 one, they would have murdered us all ; but I doubt that, for we were well 

 armed, and the Indians are afraid of guns. 



Padre Lorente, when he joined the Mission, came down the Pachitea 

 in nine days from Mayro to Sarayacu in the month of August ; if so, 

 there must have been an enormous current in the Pachitea and Ucayali 

 above, for it takes thirty days to reach the mouth of the Pachitea from 

 Sarayacu, which distance Padre Lorente descended in six ; and Padre 

 Plaza (who is said, however, to be a slow traveller) took eighteen to 

 ascend the Pachitea from its mouth to Mayro, which Padre Lorente 

 accomplished downwards in three. I judged from the short course of 

 this river, and the great descent, that it had a powerful current. The 

 padre said that, a day's journey above the mouth of the Pachitea, his 



