XI 
SAN CARLOS 
379 
small spoonfuls. Following this I gave sweet oil 
and warm water, but it was very difficult to get it 
swallowed and to avoid suffocation. We also 
tickled the throat with a feather to induce vomiting, 
but he seemed to have no strength to throw any- 
thing off his stomach. Cold wet cloths were 
applied to his head and warm ones to his body as 
well as hot stones to his feet ; and with the help of 
a Portuguese I managed to cup him behind the 
shoulder, and after several attempts drew a good 
deal of blood. Next a fowl was killed and broth 
made, and given him at intervals, and having spent 
several hours in this way, without being able to 
induce vomiting or restore consciousness, I was 
obliged to retire, but directed the fomentations to 
be kept up. About 4 p.m. they came to tell me 
that, after a violent spasm and vomiting a clot of 
blood, he immediately expired. 
Deaths from drink are very frequent at San 
Carlos, and a short time ago two young men died 
from this cause. Conde left two sons, fine stout 
lads of from sixteen to eighteen. Soon after his 
death I engaged the elder of them one day to cut 
me some firewood. When I asked him what he 
would be paid in, he said at once trago ; that is, 
liquor. I asked him if he had so soon forgotten 
his father's death and the cause of it. Oh ! " said 
he, laughing, " trago never killed anybody ; my 
father was embrugadi (bewitched)." When I 
returned from the Casiquiari at the end of 
February, I learnt that young Conde had fallen a 
victim to trago — died almost exactly the same way 
as his father ! 
[Shortly before leaving San Carlos for the 
