marvel was the sheet of paper on which the artist essayed a portrait of one of his hosts. The finished sketch did not appear to attract them at all, or to raise in their minds the faintest association with the human form, but the texture and whiteness of the sheet excited their lively admiration, and they passed it from one to another with many exclamations of wonder. Meantime, a number of questions were suggested and proposed through the interpreter.
The formality of marriage among the Siriniris was found to be quite unknown; the most rudimentary idea of divine worship could not be discovered; the treatment of the aged was shown to be contemptuous and neglectful in the extreme; and the lines of demarcation with the beasts seemed to be but feebly traced. Finally, Mr. Marcoy begged the interpreter to propound the delicate inquiry whether, among the viands with which they nourished or had formerly nourished themselves, human flesh had found a place. Garcia hesitated, and at first declined to push the interrogation, but after some persuasion consented. The Siriniris were not in the least shocked at the question, and answered that the flesh of man, especially in infancy, was a delicious food, far better than the monkey, the tapir or the peccary; that their nation, in the days of its power, frequently used it at the great feasts; but that the difficulty of procuring such a rarity had increased until they were now forced to strike it from their bill of fare.
The night passed without disturbance, and the next day's parting was accompanied by reiterated requests for a repetition of the visit. The Panther, who since their arrival had oppressed the travelers with a multitude of officious attentions, escorted them into the woods, and there took leave of them with a gesture of his hand, relieving their eyes of his slippery, snake-like robe of spots. A knife from their stores, slung round his neck like a locket, smote his breast at each step as he danced backward, and a couple of large fish-hooks glanced in his ears.
With a feeling of relief and satisfied curiosity the exploring party left behind them the traces of these children of Nature, and returned toward the river. The cascarilleros, all for their business, had regretted the waste of time, and now betook themselves to an examination of the woods with all their energy. After several hours of march their efforts were crowned with success. Eusebio presently rejoined his employers, showing leaves and berries of the Cinchona scrobiculata and pubescens: the peons, on their side, had discovered isolated specimens of the Calisaya, which, joined with those found on Mount Camanti, indicated an extended belt of that precious species. This was not the best. A veritable treasure which they had unearthed, worth all the others put together, was a line of those violet cinchonas which the native exporters call Cascarilla morada, and the botanists Cinchona Boliviana. The trees of this kind were grouped in threes and fours, and extended for half a mile. This repeated proof that the most valuable of all the cinchonas, together with nearly every one of the others, were to be discovered in a small radius along the valley of the Cconi, filled the explorers with triumph, and demonstrated beyond a doubt the sagacity of Don Santo Domingo in organizing the expedition.
The purpose and intention of the journey was now abundantly fulfilled. Had the travelers rested satisfied with the liberal indications they had found, and consented to place themselves between the haunts of the savages and the abodes of civilization, with a tendency and determination toward the latter, they might have returned with safety as with glory. The estimate made by Eusebio, however, of the trend or direction of the calisaya groves, induced him to forsake the bed of the Cconi, and strike south-eastwardly, so as to cross the Ollachea and the Ayapata.
"But the mountains are disappearing," hazarded Mr. Marcoy. "Will not the cinchonas disappear with them?"
"Oh," answered the majordomo, like a pedagogue to a confident school-boy, "the señor knows better how to put ink or color on a sheet of paper than how to judge of these things. The plain, the campo llano, is far enough to the east. Before we should see the disappearance of the mountains, we should have to cross as many hills and ravines as we have left behind us."
"What do you think of doing, then?" naturally demanded Marcoy, who had long since begun to feel that the expedition had but one chief, and that was the sepia-colored cascarillero from Bolivia,
"Everything and nothing," answered Eusebio.
These enigmas always carry the day. The apparatus of march was once more set in motion toward the adjacent water-sheds. After a considerable journey—rewarded, it must be said, with a succession of cinchona discoveries—they halted near a clearing in the forest, where large heaps of stones and pebbles, arranged in semicircles, attracted their attention. The cascarilleros explained this appearance as due to former arrangements for gold-washing in an old river-bed, the San Gavan or the Ayapata, that had now changed its locality.
While examining the unusual appearance an abominable clamor burst from the woods around, and a band of Siriniris appeared, led by a lusty ruffian crowned with oriole feathers, whom the travelers recognized as having been among their previous acquaintances.
The encounter was very disagreeable, but the strangers determined to make the best of it. The manner of this band of Indians was somewhat different from that of the others. They brought nothing for barter, and had an indescribably coarse and hardy style of behavior.
The travelers determined to buy a little information, if nothing better, with their knives and fish-hooks. Garcia was accordingly instructed to demand the meaning of the heaps and causeways of stones. The savages laughed at first, but finally informed the visitors that the constructions which puzzled them so had been made by people of their own race many years ago, for the purpose of gathering gold from the river which used to run along there, but which now flowed seven miles off.
This information was dear to the historic instinct of Marcoy. He spoke, by his usual proxy, to the Indian of the oriole, commanding him not to begin every explanation by laughing, as he had been doing, but to answer intelligently, promising a reward of several knives. The savage exchanged a rapid glance with his fellows, and then he and they stood up as stiff and mute as the trees. Marcoy then asked him if he had never heard his father or his grandfather speak of the great city of San Gavan, built hereabouts formerly by the Spanish chevaliers, and which the Caranga and Suchimani Indians from the Inambari River had destroyed by fire.
The evident recognition of this legend by the savages, and their rapid exchange among themselves of the words sacapa huayris Ipaños, induced Marcoy to ask if they could guide them to the site of the former city. They answered that a day's march would be sufficient, and pointed with their arms in the direction of north-north-west.
The temptation to see the place whose golden renown, after having made the tour of the American continent, had reached Spain and the world at large, was too strong to be resisted. Colonel Perez, besides the magic attraction which the mention of gold had for him, felt his national pride touched by the idea of a place where his compatriots had added such magnificence to the Spanish name, and gained so many ingots of gold by paddling in the streams. The cascarilleros were delighted to extend their journey, in hopes of yet larger discoveries. As for the porters, since the manifestations of the savages they clung to the party with as much anxiety as they had ever shown to escape from it.
In 1767 the city of San Gavan, remaining intact amid the ruin of all its neighbors, was the sole disburser of the riches of the Caravaya Valley. The gold-dust, collected throughout the whole territory on a government monopoly, was brought thither upon the backs of Indians, melted into ingots, and distributed to Lima and the world at large. On the night of the 15th and 16th of December in that year the wealthy city was fired by the Carangas and the Suchimanis, and all the inhabitants slain with arrows or clubs. The first lords of the soil had resumed their rights.
When the news of the event was brought to Lima, the viceroy of the period, Antonio Amat, swore on a piece of the true cross to exterminate every Indian in Peru. It is to the persuasions of his favorite, Mariquita Gallegas, that the preservation of the native tribes from a bloody extirpation is due. This woman, La Perichola, whose caricatured likeness we see in the most agreeable of Offenbach's
