, 1890-10-09

he about the best one. We were
agreeably surprised to find that their
language had little spanish mixed
with 1t. We found u family con
sisting of about fifteen persons, all
naked excepting the grown ones,
who had skin around their loins.
The Padre" was very much pleased
TO see us; and when he found we
were Americans he nearly went
wild with delight. or course in II
very short time the whole neighbor.
mood knew we were there and all
wanted to see us. These Indians
are not like our American Indians;
they are intelligent, well formed and
neat. They live OH fruit and
iish. They asked us great
many questions about the "cold
country" and told us lots about
themselves. Their houses are built
OF bamboo, are round and have u
roof like u great umbrella made of
grass. Their religion is Pagan.
Ihey worship the cobra snake. We
enjoyed ourselves very much during
the two days we We're among them.
We went with them to catch mon
keys and had jaguar fights, etc.
They told us If we went further
up the river we would never return,
but they could not tell why, 40 we
We're not frightened out of going.
we had very rough water "a while,
and then we would get good water.
Although we had ascended the Orc
over 200 miles 1t was still about the
same size as at its mouth. The
woods were alive with game, and
there were very few snakes or mos
quitocs, as we were getting too high
UP for them. We saw no more In.
dian huts after leaving the rapids
and falls.
One morning Joe and I went u
short distance from the camp to get
some kind of game. We had not
got outside of speaking distance,
when right before us stood the
strangest looking deer | had ever
seen. / shot 1t and found it to he
about the same size of an ordinary
American doe, and built the same,
IL was coal black, excepting ring
of pure white around the neck,
joining white stripe down its
breast, also perfectly snow white
tail. IL was the most beautiful AN
imal l have ever seen. We thought
1t was freak of nature, but we
afterward saw lots of them fur
ther up.
Three days after getting the first
black deer, we came to another lake,
or swamp rather, for 1t was all full
of rushes and lilies and shallow
wafer. We thought we We're Ger.
tainly at the head of the river, as
great mountains loomed up all
around us. Mount ChimboraZo,
5000 feet high, was in iull view.
Although we were less than sixty
miles from the equator, the air was
cool.
We camped just after getting into
the lake, and when morning came
we were glad to warm by IA fire.
Aftsr a good breakfast of fish, fried
bananas and coffee we again set out,
expecting TO soon come to the last
OF Rio de Orc water. AT noon the
water was 30 shallow that our
canoes would scarcely run, but we
could see through the rushes clear
water further on. We were soon in
1t, and at =. NJ. we got to the end
of the swamp lake. Here we found
- HNhN Nohi a1 hoiEO 90 WV AheeiV t'BO-
kane, but instead of 1t running into
the lake 1t was running out of II.
Ii was so full of boulders that our
canoes would not run, so we started
to follow, as we could hear the roar
of falls which we knew were near.
We walked about two miles, when
we came to where the stream fell
over u cliff at least 200 feet perpen-
dicular. This satisfied us. We at
once became satisfied that water In
this lake flowed into both the At
lautlc and Pacific oceans. We are
probably the only white persons
who have ever seen 1t just as 1t is.
As we did not care 20 run down
the Amazon river, we returned.
The trip back To Guayaquil was
over the same ground and | will not
say anything of IL excepting that
we fairly ''tiew" down stream,
nearly drowning me and Joe and
the natives twice by capsizing. We
arrived safely at Guayaquil and
having seen all we wished to there
We left for other parts.