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TARAPOTO TO CANELOS 109
been ill for several days, was now unable to stand,
and excessively bloated. . . .
We took it on shore where we made our break-
fast this morning, and, as it was evidently in a
dying state, before we re-embarked its master put
an end to its sufferings by a couple of pistol-shots.
Thus our two handsome dogs, on whose services as
sentinels we had so much calculated, had been left
as food for beasts and birds of prey my poor
" Sultan " in the forests of the Huallaga, and Don
Victoriano's " Muchacho " in those of the Pastasa !
At sunset we reached the ancient pueblo of
Santander on the left shore. Standing on a steep
bank of red earth, it reminds me, by its position,
of Barraroa on the river Negro. I invited our
Indians to go there to sleep, but they shook their
heads and could not even be induced to take that
side of the river. There are still two large houses
standing possibly church and convent.
[During the next fortnight the journey was
wearisome and monotonous, with almost continuous
rains, rarely any dry land to sleep on, and not a
single village or settlement of any kind. The only
break to the monotony of the succeeding days i
an occasional success in procuring game, such as
curassows or wild clucks, once an armadillo, and
once by great good fortune a tapir. Only once the
met a solitary canoe with a young Indian man and
woman who said they came from Andoas,
learnt that the man
reaching that place they
the son of the chief, and that he was running a\\
with the girl to somewhere; on the Maranon.
On the evening of th