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We arrived, on the 3rd of December, at the mouth of the Jutahi, a considerable stream about half a mile broad, and flowing with a very sluggish current. This is one of the series of six rivers, from 400 to 1000 miles in length, which flow from the southwest through unknown lands lying between Bolivia and the Upper Amazons, and enter this latter river between the Madeira and the Ucayali.
Steamboats of their build are now troubling the more distant waters of the Atrato, Magdalena, Orinoco, Amazon, Purus, Madeira, Tocantins, Ucayali, La Plata, Parana and Guayaquil Rivers of South America. They have other branches of manufacture, uniting the industries of the land to the toil of the sea.
We had the satisfaction of feeling sure that, should we be pursued, our enemies would take much longer time to cross than we did. Still, however, we pushed on as fast as the nature of the ground would allow. We were now approaching the river Ucayali, at a spot not far from the banks of which Manco intended to make his abode.
For beverages they had a good store of the best that country produced; "caysuma" or "machachera," from the Upper and Lower Amazon, an agreeable liquor of slightly acidulated taste, which is distilled from the boiled root of the sweet manioc; "beiju," from Brazil, a sort of national brandy, the "chica" of Peru; the "mazato" of the Ucayali, extracted from the boiled fruits of the banana-tree, pressed and fermented; "guarana," a kind of paste made from the double almond of the "paulliniasorbilis," a genuine tablet of chocolate so far as its color goes, which is reduced to a fine powder, and with the addition of water yields an excellent drink.
Those who make the river rise in Bolivia, and descend form the mountains of Titicaca, have to prove that the true Amazon is the Ucayali, which is formed by the junction of the Paro and the Apurimac an assertion which is now generally rejected.
After having passed the Rio Huallaga and the Pachitea, which with the Beni forms the Ucayali, we find, in advancing towards the east, only ranges of hills.
The idea then seized them to commit themselves to the chances of the stream, although ignorant whither it would lead. So onward they went. Another remarkable voyage was accomplished, in a similar manner, by a Spaniard named Lopez d'Aguirre, from Cusco, in Peru, down the Ucayali, a branch of the Amazons flowing from the south, and therefore, from an opposite direction to that of the Napo.
I must hurry on, I find, with my adventures. For several days we proceeded down the Ucayali, till we arrived at a point where a small river, called the Shaunga, falls into it. The stream was broad and tranquil, and vast trees grew down to the water's edge; while in the far distance, to the south and east, rose ranges of lofty mountains, reminding us of the distant Andes in miniature.
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