Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

442 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
For years afterwards the solitary shots in the
sombre forests of Lake Vasiva used to haunt my
memory and my dreams. They were as mysterious
to me, although not so alarming, as the single footprint
was to Robinson Crusoe. My ears were
always open to some repetition of the sound which
might lead to detecting its origin. In April 1857,
I was on my voyage up the lonely Pastasa, at the
eastern foot of the Andes. My companions were
two Spaniards, two whitish lads who acted as our
servants, and fourteen Cucama Indians who paddled
our two canoes. Five months before, there had
been an uprising of the savage Jibaros and Huambisas,
who had laid waste the Christian villages on
the Amazon, below the Pongo de Manseriche, and
the only village (Santander) on the Lower Pastasa.
We travelled, therefore, in constant risk of being
attacked, and were on the alert day and night.
The Indians would never go on shore to cook
until we had first landed with our arms and ascertained
that the adjacent forest was clear. One
morning we had cooked our breakfast, and were
just squatting down, Turkish fashion, around the
steaming pots, when what sounded like a gunshot
quite near brought us all to our feet. But the
Jibaros, we knew, had no firearms, and it at once
struck me that it was the identical sound heard on
Lake Vasiva. "What and where is that?" I ex-
claimed.
"
I will take you straight to it, if you
and accepting
like," said the old pilot of my canoe ;
his offer, I plunged into the bush with him, and in
three minutes reached a heap of debris, like a huge
haycock, the remains of a decayed Palm -trunk
whose sudden fall it was that had startled us. It