and heliconias, while, if the current be not too strong, the eye is now and then delighted by exquisite patches of waterlilies, or the pretty shields of other aquatic plants.

But charming as are the vistas presented by the river, the pictures offered by the tributary streams which drain the forest on either side are still more enchanting. The mouths of these streams seem at first sight like little bays that indent the bank; for they are so curtained about by masses of vegetation that a view of what is beyond is effectually concealed. A few strokes of the machete, however, enables our pilot to escape from the apparent cul de sac, and a vigorous stroke of an oar sends our canoe into a magnificent arcade of greenery fifty feet wide and hundreds of feet long. The sides of this vaulted passageway are veiled with a delicate drapery of vines and creepers, which trail from tree to tree, and hang with orchiddecked tapestries, which as much surpass the rarest creations of Flemish looms as nature surpasses art. Here the atmosphere is redolent of rarest perfumes producing, like the frangipani plant, the effect

"Of orris mixed with spice,

Sandal and violet with musk and rose,'

and surpassing in the delicacy of their fragrance the famed

"Sabean odors from the spicy shores
Of Araby the Blest."

Further onward in this matchless arcade the passage narrows, and the sunshine is so completely curtained out by the mass of foliage and scrambling plants that we seem to be in the half-light of the under-world, with all its pervading, mysterious, whispering silence. The effect produced is then weird and impressive in the extreme, while the little that is visible in the encircling gloom is well described by Dante in one of his canzoni,

"Come pintura in tenebrosa parte
Que non si può mostrare,

Ne dar diletto di color, ne d'arte."'1

Our second and last night on the Paranapura is noted in my diary as the only place during my journey across the continent where I used a mosquito-bar. And, wonderful to relate, it was the only place where it was needed. This I have always considered most remarkable, in view of the experiences of other travelers in the equatorial regions, who have complained of the clouds of mosquitoes and zancudos which day and night made their life a torture. From what I had been told, I expected to suffer more or less from these insect plagues as soon as I reached the lowlands, but I was fortunate enough to escape them entirely. During my entire trip between the Pacific and the Atlantic, I did not lose five minutes' repose from insects of any kind. So far as I am aware no other traveler has had a similar piece of good luck to record.

The day we reached Yurimaguas we were in our piragua shortly after two o'clock in the morning. The atmosphere was deliciously fresh, the thermometer registering 69° F., and the ever-changing views on the river in the pale, silvery light of the moon, were even more entrancing than anything we had seen the preceding day, except the natural arcades above described.

It was during these early morning hours that I first heard the melancholy notes of the little bird known as El alma perdida―the lost soul. It is related that a young Indian mother left her child in charge of her husband, while she went into the forest to collect balsam. Alarmed at her long absence, the man went in search of his wife, leaving his child behind. When they returned to the spot where the child had been left, it was gone, and to their repeated calls, as they wandered through the woods in search of it, they 1"Lost like a picture on a gloomy wall,

Which cannot show its worth,

Nor give delight from color nor from art."

could get no response, except the mournful notes of this little bird, which, to their over-wrought imaginations, sounded like papa, mama-by which name it is still known among the Quichuas of the montaña.

As we neared Yurimaguas, another halting place in our long wanderings, we passed quite a large number of canoes, big and little, nearly all of which were manned by Indians. Many of them were laden with fruits and vegetables for the market. Some of the boats were in charge of Indian women, who seemed quite as skillful with the paddle as the men. In most cases there were several children aboard, who, if able to lift a paddle, were sure to have one in their hands, which they plied as dexterously as does a young seal its flippers.

We arrived at Yurimaguas at noon the third day after our departure from Balsapuerto. It was not without a pang that I here took leave of the generous, kindly governor of Balsapuerto and the gentle Indian bogas, who had contributed so greatly to my pleasure and comfort by their obliging disposition and by their marvelous skill as oarsmen. I gave each of them a suitable souvenir of our journey together, and they were good enough to invite me to be their guest the next time I should desire a piragua and bogas on either the Cachiyaco or Paranapura.

From our piragua I went directly to the prefectura, where the sub-prefect greeted me with the same marked cordiality as that with which I had been received elsewhere in Peru, and nothing was left undone to render the day I spent there eminently enjoyable.

In the evening the sub-prefect gave a dinner in honor of El viajero Norte-Americano, to which he invited all the representative men of the town. It was a most delightful gathering and the good-fellowship manifested was quite exceptional. Speeches were made in which special emphasis was laid on the friendly relations between Peru and the United States, and toasts were drunk to the presidents of the two republics.

All had many questions to ask about President Roosevelt, and I was surprised. at the knowledge which these men, in the heart of the wilderness, displayed regarding the career and policies of our strenuous chief executive. One of them was so enthusiastic about him that he insisted in drinking a second toast Al ilustrisimo Presidente Roosevelt, amigo del Peru. This was the occasion for more speeches, in which were portrayed the greatness and glories of Peru and Yurimaguas, after the opening of the Panama Canal and the completion of the Payta-Amazon Railroad. Then, as our perfervid orators saw it, a branch road would be extended from the trunk line to their enterprising town, and Yurimaguas would at once become the great commercial center of the upper Amazon basin.

A parting bumper was drunk to the health of the guest of the evening, with the expression of the hope that we might all meet at Panama in 1915 for the opening of the great canal which, it was predicted, would bring Peru and the United States as close together in commerce as they now are in friendship and mutual esteem.

CHAPTER XXII

BATTLE-GROUNDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE CONQUISTADORES OF THE CROSS

Yurimaguas, a flourishing town of nearly four thousand inhabitants, was founded in 1709 by a Spanish missionary, and named after the Yurimaguas Indians, who were formerly one of the most numerous and powerful tribes on the Amazon. They were forced to leave their former homes in order to escape the Portuguese slave-hunters, who frequently came from Pará and carried off into captivity all the members of the tribe whom they could find. So pernicious was the activity of these dealers in human flesh, and so great was the mortality-fully ninety per cent.-of the unfortunate victims of Portuguese greed and cruelty, that the number of Yurimaguas now living is but a small fraction of those who peopled the forests of the Amazon valley three centuries ago. It is thought by some that the women of this tribe were the Amazons whom Orellana encountered when he discovered the river which has since borne their

name.

The town of Yurimaguas is interesting, among other reasons, because it is the head of steam navigation on the Huallaga. Two lines of Peruvian river steamers ply fortnightly between it and Iquitos, which is at present the terminus of ocean liners. As, however, the Huallaga can support vessels of much greater draft, than those which now plow its waters, it is probable that, when commerce shall demand it, small ocean steamers will ascend this great affluent of the Amazon as far as Yurimaguas. This, at all events, is the fond hope of the citizens of this enterprising and ambitious burg.