142 , NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
manners and with none of the craving selfishness 
of those people. I had therefore quite a pleasure 
in offering him such little presents as I had kept in 
store for that purpose. His wife was a tall young 
woman with pleasing features, and they had four 
small children, all ill of catarrhal fever. The 
Curaca and every one about him were complaining 
of illness, especially of rheumatic pains, which was 
not to be wondered at from the wet and mud 
among which they live at this season.^ In dry 
weather the site must be rather pleasant ; the 
ground is highish, rising from the Piiyu, which 
furnishes water, though it is a good ten minutes' 
walk to the river and back. When the sky is clear, 
Mount Tunguragua, with its cope of snow, and the 
lower wooded ridges in front of it are seen very 
distinctly. 
The afternoon of the day we arrived was nearly 
fair, though cloudy and cool ; but at two of the 
following morning it came on to rain heavily and 
continued without intermission till midnight. 
Next day (20th) drizzling rain from sunrise till 
nightfall. The sloppy ground, the soaked forest, 
and the unceasing rain kept us close prisoners. 
My Indians had been occupied in preparing chicha 
for the remainder of the journey ; this task was 
completed, but the weather and the road were so 
dreadful that we could not think of starting. They 
declared they w^ere quite out of heart, and they 
^ Shortly after I passed by the Jibaria, Hueleca removed with his family to 
Sara-yacu, to consult some noted medicine-man ; there his wife and one of his 
children died, and I have since learnt that he has burnt down his house and 
the convent, and that he has removed to some other part of the forest where 
the whites never pass, for to their contamination he believes that he owes his. 
bereavement. 
