Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

TARAPOTO TO CANELOS 105
impeded by swollen rivers and steeping rains.
. . . Join
to this a monotonous river whose flat
shores rarely rose 2 feet above water, almost desti-
tute of settled inhabitants (we once passed fifteen
days without meeting a soul), and you will have
some idea how heart-sickening such a journey must
have been. From embarking on the till
Huallaga
entering the mouth of the Bombonasa (which is
now the frontier of Ecuador), we had the usual
accompaniment of cudos by night.
mosquitoes by day and zan-
[A few details of this portion of the voyage will
now be given from the Journals and letters. At
La Laguna, near the mouth of the Maranon, the
travellers stayed three days in order to get fresh
men and make toldos (thatched cabins) in the stern
of the canoes. They also had to collect provisions
for the voyage up the Pastasa to Andoas at the
mouth of the Bombonasa river, the greater part of
the shores of those rivers being without inhabitants.
At La Laguna Spruce witnessed a curious example
of voluntary flagellation which he thus describes :-
The Indians of La Laguna have a custom of scourging them-
selves in the Holy Week. We were setting out a fortnight before
Luster, so that there would he no opportunity of performing this
at the proper time, our Indians therefore determined on
going their "penitencia" on the Saturday evening,
purpose whips of a most barlurous description had
cylinders of pitch six inches long were stuck full of bits of
broken glass, pn>je< -ting ubout half an inch. About four in the
afternoon the penitents began to promenade the streets, giving
themselves smart blows on the n iked shoulders with thongs
thick skin of cow-fish, that the blood Mil-lit flow more fre<
application of scarifies, which was done by thcmsi
manner when all assembled in .1 house,
they sallied forth to the church, \\ulking by tw
one mass of gore and their \\hite trousers (their only
soaked and dripping with blood. I h.i\e never