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At length even the task of burying the dead was more than the living could perform, and the bodies were tossed into the stream, or left for beasts of prey, and for the gallinazos those dreadful carrion birds, which do not always wait for death before they begin their work.
They were urubus, a kind of small vulture, with naked necks and long claws, and black as crows. In South America they are known as gallinazos, and their voracity is unparalleled. The body, torn open by their beaks, gave forth the gases which inflated it, its density increased, it sank down little by little, and for the last time what remained of Torres disappeared beneath the waters of the Amazon.
The city of Lima is now in a wretched state of decay: the streets are nearly unpaved; and heaps of filth are piled up in all directions, where the black gallinazos, tame as poultry, pick up bits of carrion.
Seated on the crumbling maintop of the ship was a huge, evil-looking bird of the kind called "Gallinazos" in South America. The carrion creature eyed the newcomer with a red malevolent eye and again gave voice to its harsh croak the sound that had so startled him at its first utterance.
The bodies of the traitors were not buried, but dragged away to a distance, and there left to be devoured by the gallinazos or vultures. The resolute Benavides had fortitude to bear this also, without flinching or even showing the least indication of life; and one cannot help regretting that so determined a power of endurance had not been turned to a better purpose.
Less attractive in appearance were the gallinazos, or vultures, the scavengers of those regions; while frequently on the mud banks we caught sight of alligators basking in the hot sun, often fast asleep, with their mouths wide open. We reached Bodegas early in the day. It is a large village, built on a flat.
The city of Lima is now in a wretched state of decay: the streets are nearly unpaved; and heaps of filth are piled up in all directions, where the black gallinazos, tame as poultry, pick up bits of carrion.
Few birds or beasts were to be seen the monkeys and parrots we had left below us; gallinazos, or black vultures, were, however, still met with, as they are everywhere throughout the continent, performing their graceful evolutions in the air, wheeling round and round without closing their wings, in large flocks, above the watery region we had left.
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