73 



forty thousand Indians. We passed the river of 

 Chambo by the bridge of Penip6, in the month 

 of June, 1802. This is one of those bridges of 

 ropes, which the Spaniards call puente de maro- 

 ma, or de hamaca ; and the Peruvian Indians, in 

 the qquichua language, or that of the Incas, 

 cimppachaca, from cimppa, or cimpasca, ropes, 

 tresses, and chaca, a bridge. The ropes, three or 

 four inches in diameter, are made of the fibrous 

 part of the roots of the agave Americana. On 

 each bank they are fastened to a clumsy frame- 

 work, composed of several trunks of the schinus 

 molle. As their weight makes them bend to- 

 ward the middle of the river, and as it would be 

 imprudent to stretch them with too much force, 

 they are obliged, when the banks are low, to 

 form steps or ladders at both extremities of the 

 bridge of hamac. That of Penip6 is a hundred 

 and twenty feet long, and seven or eight broad ; 

 but there are bridges, which have more consider- 

 able dimensions. The great ropes of pitte are 

 covered transversely with small cylindrical pieces 

 of bamboo. These structures, of which the 

 people of South America made use long before 

 the arrival of the Europeans, remind us of the 

 chain bridges at Boutan, and in the interior of 

 Africa. Mr. Turner *, in his interesting account 



* Account of an Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo 

 Lama in Thibet, 1800, page 55. 



