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THE FORESTS OF ALAUSI 241
got in former years. We started on horseback,
and a mule carried our necessaries. My counsel
was to leave the horses, but Bermeo felt sure I
should not be able to perform the distance on foot ;
we had gone, however, a very short way when we
found it necessary to cut our way through the
forest, for the track had got overgrown in two
years that no one had passed along it ; nor
was
it possible without wasting a good deal of time to
open a passage overhead so that a man might pass
mounted ;
I therefore preferred going on foot most
of the way. We reached the banks of the Puma-
cocha at an early hour of the afternoon, but the
ford which Bermeo had passed in former years had
been destroyed by the falling of a cliff, and in its
place we found a deep whirlpool ;
so with the drift-
wood along the banks we set to work to make a
bridge where the river was narrowed between two
rocks, and when completed carried across it our
baggage, saddles, etc. Then, after a long search,
we found a place where we could swim the horses
over, and by rolling clown a good deal of earth and
stones we made a way for them to ascend on the
other side. Once across, we selected a site for
our hut among Vegetable-ivory palms, and thatched
the hut with fronds of the same. Close by were
the remains of a platanal, showing that the spot
had formerly been inhabited, and fortunately still
bearing a sufficient number of plantains to cook
along with our salt meat during the two days we
calculated on remaining there. Our horses were
taken to the top of a neighbouring hill, where there
was a bed of one of those large succulent Panicums
called Gamalote, which afford a very nutritious
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