Iquitos

“ They have always appeared to live together very happily.
The trial of Señor Nunes has aroused great interest and sympathy in Iquitos, especially among the señoritas. An admiring and distinguished anthology of beautiful damsels and charming wives attended the execution, which was admitted to be the most magnificent held in Iquitos for years.
When an opportunity was given the condemned to address his hearers, Señor Nunes pronounced a graceful tribute to “woman.” ”

“ The city consists of two pueblos, the larger of which is occupied by Indians and half-breeds, the descendants of the Iquitos tribe from whom the city takes its name. The opening of the Amazon to navigation, and the subsequent arrival of foreign ocean-going vessels at Iquitos, added immensely to the importance of the city, and made it the commercial entrepôt of eastern Peru. In 1908 three lines of ocean-going steamers were making regular voyages up the Amazon to Iquitos (about 2500 m.) ”

“ Nothing could be easier. Was not the mighty river a bond of communication between Belem and Iquitos? In a few days the first mail steamer was to begin a regular and rapid service, and it would then only take a week to ascend the Amazon, on which it had taken the giant raft so many months to drift. The important commercial negotiations, ably managed by Benito, were carried through under the best of conditions, and soon of what had formed this jangada—that is to say, the huge raft of timber constructed from an entire forest at Iquitos—there remained not a trace. ”

“ Another method of exploiting these unfortunate Indians takes the form of selling them as slaves in Iquitos, and this business in human flesh yields excellent returns to the company or its employees, for they are sold in that capital at from £20 to £40 each. Every steamer that goes to Iquitos, loaded with the rubber from the Putumayo, carries from five to fifteen little Indian boys and girls, who are torn, sobbing, from their mothers’ arms without the slightest compunction. ”

“ Iquitos is a fishing village of two hundred and twenty seven inhabitants; a considerable part of them, to the number of ninety-eight, being whites and Mestizos of San Borja, and other settlements of the upper Mission, who were driven from their homes a few years ago by the Huambisas of the Pastaza and Santiago. This occurred in 1841. In 1843, these same Indians murdered all the inhabitants of a village called Sta. Teresa, situated on the upper Marañon, between the mouths of the rivers Santiago and Morona. My companion Ijurra was there soon after the occurrence. ”

“ Iquitos is quite cosmopolitan, its population including representatives of many nations; North American and European importers have branch houses here, and the growing prosperity of the city has attracted enterprising merchants from other parts of Peru and from neighboring republics. The climate is healthful and not so oppressive as one might suppose, considering the locality, less than four degrees south of the equator and only a hundred and fifty feet above the level of the river. ”

“ On this occasion Yaquita and her children, less likely, perhaps, than at Iquitos to be fed upon by the native mosquitoes, had announced their intention of going on ashore and visiting the town.
The population of Tabatinga is estimated at four hundred, nearly all Indians, comprising, no doubt, many of those wandering families who are never settled at particular spots on the banks of the Amazon or its smaller tributaries. ”

“ The men whose tasks keep them buried for years in the heart of the rubber country are always glad to have news from the outside world.
In the development of trade on the Amazon, the port of Iquitos has been placed in direct communication with the head of navigation on all the large tributaries of the great river, and explorations have been made far up the smaller streams toward their source in the Cordilleras. ”

“ To the right, again, near the mission of San Joachim d’Omaguas, just where the upper basin terminates, and after flowing majestically across the pampas of Sacramento, it receives the magnificent Ucayali, the great artery which, fed by numerous affluents, descends from Lake Chucuito, in the northeast of Arica.
Such are the principal branches above the village of Iquitos. Down the stream the tributaries become so considerable that the beds of most European rivers would fail to contain them. ”

“ There is nothing like it except Iquique on the nitrate coast of South America, and Iquique is a paradise compared with Aden. Imagine a great harbour of sea-green water, the shores of which rise almost abruptly into ragged mountains of brown rock and white sand. There is not a blade of grass to be seen, there are no trees, and even the cactus and sage brush of our American desert are absent. The town is without vegetation. It is as bare as the bones of the dead camels in the sandy waste behind it, and its tropical sun beats down out of a cloudless African sky. ”

“ The Indians are not the first people who have ascribed the origin of nautics to the ingenuity of the squirrel. The Copper Indians consider the bear, otter, and other animals of prey, or rather some kind of spirits which assume the forms of these creatures, as their constant enemies and the cause of every misfortune they endure; and in seasons of difficulty or sickness they alternately deprecate and abuse them.
Few of this nation have more than one wife at a time and none but the leaders have more than two. Akaitcho has three and the mother of his only son is the favourite. ”

“ Indeed, native Mexico, before the introduction of the equine race from Europe, had no beast of burden whatever, such as the llama afforded to the South American aboriginal peoples.
The fauna of the country embraces fifty-two varieties of mammal quadrupeds, including three species of large felidæ—the jaguar, the puma, or cougar, and the ocelot, a carnivorous cat-like animal, whose name is derived from the native Mexican word ocelotl. There are five varieties of monkeys in the tropical forests, as well as a sloth. ”

“ Many English live in Iquique. They are great brandy drinkers, and show discrimination “in not exhausting the wealth of the nitrate beds by taking too much soda in their brandy,” as one writer says. Nevertheless the people are happy, for wealth lies at their very doors and rain would cause great loss. By reason of this Iquique has grown until it is second only to Valparaiso in commercial importance. It has grown with a swiftness than can only be compared with our own western towns. In the first days of the saltpetre era nothing went slow and the town spread like magic. ”

“ I was assured by my second lieutenant, who commanded the boat on this occasion, that the Indians seemed rather pleased at our plundering the Spaniards; so natural is it for bad masters to find enemies in their servants.
The island of Iquique is in the lat. of 19° 50' S. [271] about a mile from the main land, and only about a mile and a half in circuit, the channel between it and the coast of Peru being full of rocks. It is of moderate height, and the surface consists mostly of cormorant's dung, which is so very white that places covered with it appear at a distance like chalk cliffs. ”

“ In Callao Smyth hired five mules, and two Jevero Indians to attend him as muleteers and guides. As becomes direct descendants of the Incas, these were fearless, fine-looking men, industrious and kind-hearted, though by no means the sort of folk one would like to offend. They belonged by birth to Ecuador, which is the chief home of their tribe; but they seemed to know every yard of the country from Colombia to Chile, and from the coast to the Brazilian frontier, and, contrary to the usual custom of their tribe, both spoke Spanish quite well. ”

“ In considering the physical formation of the wild Indians, we may class them according to their natural divisions, viz., the inhabitants of the more highly situated lands, or mountains, and those of the low hot flat country. The former dwell on the eastern side of the hill-chain, dividing the river territory of the Huallaga and Ucayali, and spreading to the banks of the Chauchamayo, Perene, and Apurimac. These are the Iscuchanos. They are rather tall and generally slim; their limbs are vigorous; their hands and feet small, and in walking their toes are much turned in. ”

“ The kingdom of Quito, which eventually formed the most northern province of the empire of the Yncas, consists of a series of lofty plateaux from which rise the towering peaks of Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, and Chanduy; while both to the east and west a rich tropical vegetation fills the ravines which gradually subside on one side into the valley of the Amazon, and on the other into the Pacific coast. This region was inhabited by several aboriginal tribes, the most important of which were the Cañaris, the Puruaes, and the Caras. ”

“ These ants are truly carnivorous in their tastes, and ravage whole districts, their march being regarded with terror by the natives of Central America. Mr Bates tells us that different species have different modes, of marching, by which they may be recog nised. The Ecitons in Nicaragua are termed "Army Ants," and they appear regularly to change their hunting-grounds in quest of food. Their community comprises males and females, and two kinds of neuters or workers a "workermajor," or large-headed worker, and a small-headed kind, termed the " worker-minors." ”

“ But men were not content to adore large and dangerous animals. 'There was not an animal, how vile and filthy soever, that they did not worship as a god,' including 'lizards, toads, and frogs.' In the midst of these superstitions the Incas appeared. Just as the tribes claimed descent from animals, great or small, so the Incas drew their pedigree from the sun, which they adored like the gens of the Aurelii in Rome. ”

“ At Quito, at any rate before the conquest of the country by the Incas, a hundred children were sacrificed to him every year. There is no idea of positive suffering inflicted on the wicked under his direction. But the subterranean abode is gloomy and dismal, like the place of shades in the Odyssey. ”

“ There is not, however, a distinct separation of classes, individuals existing which connect together the two extremes. These Ecitons are seen in the pathways of the forest at all places on the banks of the Amazons, travelling in dense columns of countless thousands. One or other of them is sure to be met with in a woodland ramble, and it is to them, probably, that the stories we read in books on South America apply, of ants clearing houses of vermin, although I heard of no instance of their entering houses, their ravages being confined to the thickest parts of the forest. ”

“ A shot fired by the Indian led us back to the bivouac; our companion had just killed an ocelot, called by the Indians ocotchotli.
"You see this animal, Chanito?" cried l'Encuerado, who was stroking its black and brown spotted fur; "well, its tongue is poisonous. When it kills a stag or peccary, it buries its prey under some leaves, then climbs the nearest tree, and howls until it attracts all the carnivorous animals near. When they have feasted, it comes down and devours what is left." ”

“ Yucatan is the happy hunting ground for the largest land lizard known to Natural History, the iguana. His prevailing colour is grey, shading to a light green with a lighter tint on the belly, and he has black markings crosswise his whole length to his tail and a crest of spines down his back. The creature is grotesquely ugly with his great pouched under-jaw and eyes snake-like in their smallness, and as you often meet specimens upwards of three feet long (they are known to attain five feet or more in length) , one is apt to hasten to the conclusion that they are fearsome foes. ”

“ Were it otherwise—were it not for this reasoning sagacity in utilizing the natural resources of each locality—in short, adapting their habits to the necessities of the case, the existence of these isolated colonies of ibex, on limited terrain, would be impossible. Even as it is, their survival is, we fear, in some cases, only a question of years, for the tiradores of the sierra hunt them in season and out. The serrano hunts rather for the pot than for sport, and spares neither sex nor age. With all his sportsman-like qualities and skill in his craft, our friend is not truly a sportsman. ”

“ The peculiar feature in the habits of the Eciton genus is their hunting for prey in regular bodies, or armies. It is this which chiefly distinguishes them from the genus of common red stinging-ants, several species of which inhabit England, whose habit is to search for food in the usual irregular manner. All the Ecitons hunt in large organised bodies; but almost every species has its own special manner of hunting.
Eciton rapax.—One of the foragers, Eciton rapax, the giant of its genus, whose worker-majors are half-an-inch in length, hunts in single file through the forest. ”

“ They descended, their white robes smeared with blood, while Huascar, from another vase, took heavy ear-rings, with which he adorned them. Nothing in the young faces betrayed their suffering. Then all raised their hands and took the oath of bravery and of fealty to the Inca.
“That is well,” said the King. “Let them now put on their sandals.”
This part of the ceremony was performed by the quipucamyas, the most venerable among them strapping on the young men’s feet the sandals of the Order of the Incas. ”

“ The Carca Indians, who live in the forest seven miles from Santo Domingo, travel every year to the great lake to catch iguanas, which abound on the dry hills near it. They seize them as they lie on the branches of the trees, with a loop at the end of a long stick. They then break the middle toe of each foot, and tie the feet together, in pairs, by the broken toes, afterwards sewing up the mouth of the poor reptiles, and carrying them in this state back to their houses in the forest, where they are kept alive until required for food. ”