Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

no NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
farm where three men and two women were cutting
palm -.leaves and preparing the fibre to make
hammocks for the Governor of Andoas. The
Journal now continues :
April 26 (Sunday]. - - Starting
at four this morn-
where we found
ing, about seven we reached a playa
three families of inhabitants of Pinches encamped.
We bought of them part of a very large tapir they
had killed the previous night, and some pieces of
baked agouti in very fine condition. Here we
but our men were
breakfasted, and then proceeded ;
completely at a loss in the broad shallow river, and
were continually running us aground, so that we
did not reach the village till 3^ P.M. Pinches
Nuevo stands on the left bank on a barranco 20 feet
above high -water mark. It is reached by rude
steps cut in the cliff, which is of tenacious red earth,
without the least mixture of stones or gravel.
There are but some ten houses, including church
and cabilclo (guests' house), all of Caiia brava, or of
strips of palm-stems, roofed with palm-thatch.
few inhabitants were present, and we had
Very
some
difficulty in procuring five heads of plantains and a
basket of yucas, especially as their chacras are new
and they still
plantains
bring the greater part of their
from the site of the old inhabitants are
pueblo. The
ill-looking, and some are affected
with caracha (leprosy). They are the remnant of a
nation of Pinches Indians, and still speak a peculiar
all understand the Ouichua.
language, though
April 2.7. Navigation now gets more difficult,
is there sufficient water to float our
hardly anywhere
canoes. Beaches appear in different places from
last year, and our guides can hardly pick their way.