TARAPOTO TO CANELOS 123 
have not yet mentioned that our companion Don 
Victoriano and the two muchachos, when the rising 
waters drove them from the beach, thinking that 
it was merely a brief thunder-shower which had 
caught us, gathered up their beds and cHmbed the 
barranco, where they set up two palm mats belong- 
ing to the canoe, and sheltered themselves • under 
them as well as they could ; but scarcely had they 
accommodated themselves here when the flood 
reached them and burst on them so unexpectedly 
that several articles which were loose, trousers, 
handkerchiefs, etc., were swept away. They retired 
in all haste, and in the dense gloom, ignorant of 
whither they were going, the only guide to their 
position being the roar of the river. They wished 
to enter the canoes, and called out at the top of 
their voices, which were drowned by the loud 
conflict of the elements, and the cries of the Indians 
in the canoes were all unheard by them. Thus 
they wandered about all night, the flood continually 
obliging them to retreat farther inland, and when 
day broke it found them half dead with cold, and 
their clothes and bodies torn and wounded by 
prickly bamboos and palms. To reach the canoe 
they had to wade with the water to their waists. 
As we were unloading the canoes, the barranco by 
which we had at first been moored fell into the 
river with several large trees on it ; another peril 
which we happily escaped by having had to move 
lower down. 
Puca-yacu consists of but eight houses besides 
the convent and church ; they are in the same style 
as those of Andoas, and there is no cultivation 
near them, though most have an odd tree of 
