442 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap. 
For years afterwards the solitary shots in the 
sombre forests of Lake Vasiva used to haunt my 
memory and my dreams. They were as mysterious 
to me, although not so alarming, as the single foot- 
print was to Robinson Crusoe. My ears were 
always open to some repetition of the sound which 
might lead to detecting its origin. In April 1857, 
I was on my voyage up the lonely Pastasa, at the 
eastern foot of the Andes. My companions were 
two Spaniards, two whitish lads who acted as our 
servants, and fourteen Cucama Indians who paddled 
our two canoes. Five months before, there had 
been an uprising of the savage Jibaros and Huam- 
bisas, who had laid waste the Christian villages on 
the Amazon, below the Pongo de Manseriche, and 
the only village (Santander) on the Lower Pastasa. 
We travelled, therefore, in constant risk of being 
attacked, and were on the alert day and night. 
The Indians would never go on shore to cook 
until we had first landed with our arms and ascer- 
tained that the adjacent forest was clear. One 
morning we had cooked our breakfast, and were 
just squatting down, Turkish fashion, around the 
steaming pots, when what sounded like a gunshot — 
quite near — brought us all to our feet. But the 
Jibaros, we knew, had no firearms, and it at once 
struck me that it was the identical sound heard on 
Lake Vasiva. " What and where is that ? " I ex- 
claimed. " I will take you straight to it, if you 
like," said the old pilot of my canoe ; and accepting 
his offer, I plunged into the bush with him, and in 
three minutes reached a heap of debris, like a huge 
haycock, the remains of a decayed Palm -trunk 
whose sudden fall it was that had startled us. It 
