FROM MANAoS to TARAPOTO 31 
pretty nearly done up, and on the very day I arrived 
I was seized with diarrhoea — caused probably by 
drinking the saline waters of the Huallaga. I had 
scarcely shaken off this when I was taken with 
influenza, which still holds me. To these inoppor- 
tune bodily ailments have been added no small 
mental trouble. You will perhaps have heard in 
England of the number of adventurers of all 
nations, but principally English and Americans, 
who, misled by a false report of gold on the Upper 
Maranon, went thither seeking it. Many of these 
had passed the Barra before I arrived there, but I 
still met several, and amongst them an English 
sailor who seemed a very quiet fellow, and whom I 
engaged to accompany me to Peru, thinking that a 
stout companion like him would be invaluable to 
me in a country where, as report truly said, there 
was no law but that of the strongest, and acts of 
atrocity were of frequent occurrence. I might, with 
a little more forethought, have considered that a 
man who had once become imbued with the idea of 
acquiring riches by some sudden fortune (for I 
knew he had been a "digger" in Australia) was 
never likely to take steadily to any work which 
brought him in but small, though certain, gains ; 
but I could not tell beforehand what I know now, 
that my companion had marked by violence his 
course through Peru, and had been in prison at 
Lima for murder. When we reached Peru, and 
had consequently passed the limit of any efficient 
police, his nature began to show itself, and I had 
proof that he sought occasion to murder me and 
decamp with the money I carried with me. On the 
way here from Nauta he ill-treated the Indians, and 
