Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

xv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO O
on every side, it .is one of the most picturesque
places I have seen. Its population is entirely of
Indians, though many show evident traces of white
blood, and they are among the tallest and handsomest
I have met with
Even the Governor is an
especially the women.
Indian an old man,
formerly a soldier, in which profession he learnt his
Castilian. The pueblo numbers less than 300
married men, and about 1500 souls. All speak the
Inca language, and very few have a smattering of
Spanish.
Our Indians from Tarapoto were paid to take us
up as far as Juan Guerra a small pueblo at the
junction of the Combasa and Mayo rivers above
the pongos of the Huallaga. We found it, how-
ever, impossible to persuade them to proceed
beyond Chasuta, the reason given for deserting
us being that the Indians of Chapaja, a pueblo in
the pongo, were awaiting their arrival to fall on
them unawares and kill them, as there had been a
quarrel
between them a short time before and
serious wounds had been given on both sides. It
was plain, however, that they also wanted to escape
the labour, as there are three of the worst passes on
the Huallaga a little way above Chasuta, when- the
whole cargo has to be carried overland among lar^i-
blocks of rock for some hundred yards or more,
and we had found the Tarapotinos much disincline.!
to work hard. There being no authority at Chasuta
able to make them fulfil their contract, we had n>
alternative but to engage other Indians at Chasuta
for the rest of the voyage. \\'e had already pai-i
dollar apiece to our men, and we now had to -f\
cutlass to each man of our new crews.