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RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 65
excretions. To remedy this, I prepared a decoction
of an aromatic pepper (a species of Artanthe) that
I had seen growing close by, and knew to be a
powerful diuretic, and made him drink largely of it.
In twelve hours the skin and the excretions were
restored to their normal state.
On the second day he could take a little broth,
and on the third he again ate heartily. For a
month afterwards he had occasional acute pains in
the arm and about the region of the heart, but at
the end of two months he was quite restored, and
avowed that his arm was as strong as it had ever
been.
Chumbi had caught a glimpse of the snake, and
recognised
snake, so called from being coloured like the common
green parrot, and thus rendered scarcely dis-
it as the Urrito-machacui or Parrot
tinguishable from the foliage among
which it lurks.
It grows to a yard or more long, and its bite is con-
sidered incurable. Several fatal cases had occurred
in the country adjacent to the river Mayo.
It may well be imagined that until Chumbi was
and it
fairly out of danger I felt no small anxiety,
was not lessened by gathering from the whispers
of his relatives that they considered me responsible
for the accident that had befallen him.
him into the forest, and had wished that the
might bite him. If he had died, my life
been in imminent danger. Nelson and I could
probably have defended ourselves against any open
attack of the few inhabitants of Lirio-pampa,
we could hardly have made head against Chumb
numerous relatives at Tabalosos.
When I reached Lamas on my way back,
VOL. II