Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

142
NOTES OF A BOTANIST
manners and with none of the craving selfishness
of those people. I had therefore quite a pleasure
in offering him such little presents as I had kept in
store for that purpose. His wife was a tall young
woman with pleasing features, and they had four
small children, all ill of catarrhal fever. The
Curaca and every one about him were complaining
of illness, especially of rheumatic pains, which was
not to be wondered at from the wet and mud
among which they live at this
1
season. In dry
weather the site must be rather pleasant ; the
ground is highish, rising from the Puyu, which
furnishes water, though it is a walk to the river and back.
good ten minutes'
When the sky is clear,
Mount Tunguragua, with its cope of snow, and the
lower wooded ridges in front of it are seen very
distinctly.
The afternoon of the day we arrived was nearly
and cool but at two of the
fair, though cloudy ;
following morning it came on to rain heavily and
continued without intermission till midnight.
Next day (2Oth) drizzling rain from sunrise till
nightfall. The sloppy ground, the soaked forest,
and the unceasing rain kept us close prisoners.
My Indians had been occupied in preparing chicha
for the remainder of the ; journey this task was
completed, but the weather and the road were so
dreadful that we could not think of starting. They
declared they were quite out of heart, and they
1
Shortly after I passed by the Jibaria, Hueleca removed with his family U>
there his wife and one of his
Sara-yacu, to consult some noted medicine-man ;
children died, and I have since learnt that he has burnt down his house and
the convent, and that he has removed to some other part of the forest where
the whites never pass, for to their contamination he believes that he owes his.
bereavement.