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IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 297
of those poor animals, and still more that of their
unfortunate owners, from whom they had been
taken by force, and who, in losing perhaps their
only mule, had no means left of conveying to
market the produce of their industry, and thereby
supporting their families, it will not be wondered
at that I cursed in my heart all revolutions. Grave
indeed must be the motive of complaint which a
people can have against its rulers to justify
arms to obtain redress. 1
it in
taking up
Towards the end of July the weather improved,
and in a few sunny days the fruit of the Bark trees
made visible advances towards maturity. On the
1 3th of August I noticed that the finest capsules
were beginning to burst at the base, and on the
following day I had all taken off that seemed ripe,
gathering them in this way :
an
Indian climbed the
tree, and breaking the panicles gently off, let them
fall on sheets spread on the ground to receive them,
so that the few loose seeds shaken out by the fall
1
I may here relate an incident hearing on the same subject. Whilst Dr.
Tayloi was bringing up Mr. Cross from Yentanas, a body of some 800 men,
\\hose commander I had known at Ambato, arrived from < hiaranda. As
uMi.il, they bivouacked at Limon, and when I turned out on the following
niing, I saw my four Indians prisoners in the hands of the soldiery, and
one oi them, \\ith his hands tied behind' him and a rope round his body,
about to be dragged off towards Yentanas. Among the beasts of burden
\\hich accompanied the
troops, this poor fellow had recognised his own mule
his only mule as dear to him as Sancho's ass was to Sancho, and, \\ith the
aid o| his companions, had contrived I to abstrai it during the night and hide
it away in tlie forest. In the morning (lie mule was missed, and my Indians
wi re immediately denounced as the delinquent., toi
the)
had been
handling the mule the pre\ioiis evening. I confess my indignation \\
that moment at the boiling -
point, and I wished for a hundred " Rifle
Volunteers" to put the \\hole disorderly rabble to rout. However, I had
given up hall my dormitory to the colonel, and had treated him with as much
he \M> u ld
hospitality as lay in my power, so that I had some right to expecl
not deny any rec|ucst of mine ; and accordingly, after a short parley \\ith him,
he ordered the Indians to be released. Tim. I kept my Indian.-, ami the
Indian kept his mule, which was all we wanted.