Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

66 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
warmly received by the worthy Padre, who had
heard of what he considered the wonderful cure of
the snake-bite ;
but
when I told him all the circum-
stances, and especially that Chumbi had been bitten
when on my errand, he looked very grave. "If
Chumbi had died," said he, " I should never have
seen you more. Chumbi's relatives would have
poisoned you. I in vain preach to them," he con-
tinued,
"
of what the Bible tells us about the
entrance of sin and death into the world, and
appeal to their reason to note how the body wears
out wich age, and how it is constantly exposed to
accidents which may suddenly bring its machinery
to a dead ; stop they still in their inmost hearts
believe as their pagan ancestors believed that
death is in every case the work of an enemy."
Chumbi himself was very grateful to me, and
during the remainder of my stay at Tarapoto often
sent me little presents, especially of cakes of
chancaca or uncrystallised sugar, the produce of
his chacra ; and he told to all the passers-by the
story of his narrow escape from death by a snakebite,
through the skill (as he was pleased to say) of
an Englishman.
Venomous snakes become rarer in the Equatorial
Andes when we ascend beyond 3000 feet, and at
about 6000 feet disappear altogether at least I
never saw or heard of one above that height.
The
natives believe the snakes of the sierra to be just
as venomous as those of the plains, and that it is
the cold that renders them bobas (stupid) - - of
course a mistaken notion, like most other popular
beliefs.
The superstition that it is unlucky for a woman