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Updated: June 21, 2025
We could not see them, but every few minutes a mysterious cry carried across the silent water, and the cry, we knew, was the word of our progress from the Governor's canoe-men to the messengers on the bank.
It was growing dark when we approached the entrance to the lakes. Sleep then overcame us, but our canoe-men continued paddling on at a slow pace during the night. When we awoke in the morning we found ourselves in a scene so totally different that it seemed almost like enchantment.
He roused Brass Pan, and Brass Pan roused the canoe-men, and the voyage proceeded.
His sufferings were considered to have been a sufficient punishment for his imprudent conduct in separating from us, and I only admonished him to be more cautious in future. Having received information that the hunters had killed a deer we sent three men to fetch the meat, which was distributed between our party and the canoe-men who had been encamped near to us.
Moreover, he relieved their minds, by telling them that they would easily obtain employment as canoe-men on the Amazon, for men were very difficult to be got on that river to man the boats; and if they could stand the heat, and were willing to work like Indians, they might travel as far as they pleased.
The fin bones seem to have an acrid secretion on them, for the wound they make is excessively painful. The Konokono barks distinctly when landed with the hook. Our canoe-men invariably picked up every dead fish they saw on the surface of the water, however far gone. An unfragrant odour was no objection; the fish was boiled and eaten, and the water drunk as soup.
They brought two large baskets of corn, and a lot of tobacco, as a sort of general contribution to the travellers. One of Sinamane's canoe-men, after trying to get his pay, deserted here, and went back before the stipulated time, with the story, that the Englishman had stolen the canoes.
The canoe-men of the Amazons have many songs and choruses, with which they are in the habit of relieving the monotony of their slow voyages, and which are known all over the interior. The choruses consist of a simple strain, repeated almost to weariness, and sung generally in unison, but sometimes with an attempt at harmony.
It was with great regret that I was now unable to follow the Pampaconas River to its junction with the Urubamba. It seemed possible that the Pampaconas might be known as the Sirialo, or the Cori-beni, both of which were believed by Dr. Bowman's canoe-men to rise in the mountains of Vilcabamba.
The finding of their stone axes or implements in such desolate spots enables their courses to be traced. Canoe-men who could voyage to solitary little Easter Island in the wide void towards America, or to Cape York in the distant west, were not likely to find insuperable difficulties in running before the north-east winds to New Zealand from Rarotonga, Savaii or Tahiti.
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