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Updated: June 28, 2025
When they heard where we were going, they entreated us not to proceed, assuring us that we should encounter numbers of cannibal Cashibos, who would to a certainty kill and eat us. "Tell them that we fear not the Cashibos nor any other wild men," said Manco. "If they molest us, we will treat them as the beasts of the forest, though we would willingly pass them peaceably."
Each man carried a club by his side, and a long spear in one hand, and a bow, with an arrow ready for use, in the other. As one of them turned his face, I saw that he was a Red Indian; and by the peculiar expression of his countenance, I felt certain that they must belong to the dreaded Cashibos.
"We must be on our guard against them, for they are equally cunning as fierce, and I truly believe that they really do eat those they can take prisoners." Our own Indians were evidently very much afraid of these Cashibos, and kept a much more watchful guard than heretofore, both as we rode along and after we encamped for the night.
An Indian occupies the greater part of a year in making his canoe: we calculated that we could do the work, with the aid of our iron tools, in ten days or a fortnight. Three days had passed away, and still no Cashibos had appeared. "They will, I suspect, not come at all," I remarked to Manco. "Do not be sure of that," he answered. "You do not know their savage and revengeful natures.
We had by this time become very anxious at the prolonged absence of Manco and the Indians; and I greatly feared that they might have been surprised by the Cashibos, and murdered. The sun was casting the tall shadows of the trees across the forest glades, and still they did not come. At length I determined to mount one of the horses and go in quest of them.
The Cashibos had received too strong a taste of our quality to follow at that instant, and allowed us to reach the camp unmolested.
Presently he moved again and came a little nearer, when he sat down to look at us as before. I was going to have a shot at him, but Manco restrained me, observed that it might be heard by the Cashibos, and lead them to us. Still the jaguar crept nearer, and once more stopped to watch us. If he was hungry, we must have been very tempting to him.
Several days after this we were approaching that part of the Ucayali, where we proposed to embark. I longed to reach it almost as much as did Ned. "Ah, mate," he exclaimed, when I told him that we had little more than one day's journey more on horseback to perform; "let us once get our craft built and afloat, and we may snap our fingers at the Cashibos, and any other enemies to boot."
We generally took these occasions to catch turtle, while our Indians went to hunt in the neighbourhood, and never failed to bring us back a supply of game. In about ten days after our escape from the Cashibos, we sighted a village built close to the banks of the river.
The night passed on, and though on several occasions I fancied that I could distinguish the forms of the savage Cashibos skulking round us, none appeared, and daylight once more returned. Our first care in the morning was to search for a tree which might serve us to scoop into a canoe, till lower down the Amazon we might fall in with one large enough to convey us to Para.
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