FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 33 
three months' wages and the passage from the 
Barra and back — in all 140 milreis — and on the 
whole I am some £20 out of pocket by the 
speculation.^ 
Many of the gold- seekers marked their way 
through Peru by violence, and some of them came 
to violent ends : an Englishman was killed in 
Chasuta by the Indians, an American was drowned 
in a stream which enters .the Huallaga within 
sight of Yurimaguas, and many others perished 
miserably in one way or another. All were known 
to the natives under the generic name of 'Tngleses," 
who are consequently by no means in good odour. 
You will perhaps not be surprised to hear, after 
what I have above stated, that I am inclined to 
repent having come on this expedition, which is 
proper only for a person enjoying the best bodily 
health and strength. I have still considerable 
expense and risk before me — to get to Tarapoto 
will cost me fifty dollars, though it is so near in a 
straight line that I can nearly see it from a little 
way down the river. But the delays always annoy 
me more than the expense, especially when I can- 
not work. The great bulk of my baggage is paper, 
which it is of the first necessity to bring, as I 
understand I could not procure any from nearer 
than Lima, where I have no funds and no corre- 
^ In a letter written shortly before he quitted Tarapoto, Spruce gives the 
termination of this man's career as follows : — 
" In my letter from Yurimaguas I spoke of an English sailor who came up 
with me from the Barra, and whom I was obliged to dismiss for his violent 
conduct. He has lately been cruelly murdered by two Indians who navigated 
his canoe a little below the mouth of the Ucayali, much in the same way that 
Count D' Osery was, some distance higher up the river. Though, from his own 
confession to me, I have no doubt that the same measure has been meted to- 
him as he had meted to others, I am not at all satisfied that his murderers have 
been set at liberty without punishment." 
VOL. II D 
