DON ANTONIO DE BARRAS CORDOZA. 



231 



raised on the pampa near the river banks, and the stones sold in market, 

 after being transported from Yuracares. 



A row of large glasses containing chicha was set in the middle of the 

 table, to which the government officials paid particular attention. One 

 of the young men at the table had the goitre very badly, though the 

 swelling was so low down on his neck that he could tie his cravat over 

 it, which gave him a most strange expression. "We attribute the insipid 

 taste of the beef of dinner, and the swelling in this man's neck, to the 

 same cause — the want of salt. 



The coffee was excellent, but the tobacco not so good as some we 

 found in Cochabamba from Santa Cruz, where the plant grows under a 

 a drier climate. 



Don Antonio de Barras Cordoza, a native of Para in Brazil, came to 

 see us. Don Antonio seems a clever person. He had more resolution 

 in the expression of his face than any man we had met with, while he 

 looked as if he had seen some hard service as a sailor on the Amazon. 

 The quick and pleasant flash of his eye, when I told him I wanted to 

 descend the Madeira and Amazon to Para, gave ^ne hopes. He told 

 me he had been seven months on his voyage here from Borba on the 

 Madeira river ; that he had dragged his boats over the land on rollers 

 by several of the falls on the Madeira, unloading his cargo at the foot 

 of each fall, and, after carrying it by the fall, launched his boat and em- 

 barked again. His father had made a trip of the same kind some years 

 before. He advised me not to take a Mojos canoe or crew ; that the 

 boat would be broken among the rocks, and that the Indians of Bolivia 

 were so inexperienced they would be of no use to me, even if they did 

 not desert me as soon as they came within the sound of the roaring of 

 the waters of the first fall, as they had already done with some Bolivians 

 who attempted to descend the river with them. It was very clear that 

 our only way was to give up all idea of aid from the canoemen of Bo- 

 livia in this respect, and look to Brazil. The prefect might order men 

 to descend the Madeira, and we might go at once ; but Indians are un- 

 willing to go a great distance from home. One month to them is con- 

 sidered a long voyage, therefore they would want to return in that time ; 

 but, by Don Antonio's account, it will take them at least seven months 

 to return alone. The Indians keep count of the number of days absent 

 from their wives by cutting a small notch in the handle of their paddles 

 every seventh day, and a crew that returns with over four notches has 

 been absent a long time from Trinidad, it is thought. 



Don Antonio explained to me how it was that the canoes of Mojos 

 were not fitted for the route down the Madeira. They are all hewn or 



