became so deep that I had to strip off my clothes and carry them on my head. The mozos managed their cargoes most skilfully, shifting them up as high as they could go on their backs, and in this way we crossed a deep backwater, walking along a sort of underwater bridge which the Indians whom I had sent on the day before had prepared for us. A few yards beyond this we had to cross the river Chimuchuch itself, which was still a deep stream, although in the middle of the dry season I am told it is a mere muddy-banked brook. The Indians, with great judgment and skill, had felled two trees from opposite sides of the stream, whose branches interlaced, and along this rough bridge the cargadores carried their loads in safety, whilst Gorgonio, Carlos, and I swam the animals across where the stream was clearer of trees and branches. We were already pretty well wet through with the wading and splashing, and we fared no better when we were across the stream and on rising ground, for the rain came down in torrents and completed our discomfort. We were intending to sleep in a small ermita not far from the river bank, but here we were met by an Indian who told us he had a rancho on a hill about a mile distant, where he begged us to come and pass the night. The rancho was small and dirty, with no partitions in it, and its human occupants were two women (one of them the wife of the Indian who had welcomed us) and a dying baby. It was in the hope that I could do something to recover his child that the poor Indian had been so insistent on our passing the night beneath his roof; but the little I could do was of no avail, as the poor little mite was in the last state of distress and racked by a croupy cough.
The rain and the darkness had come on together, and my long train of mozos crowded in under the scanty covering of the roof and disputed with the pigs and chickens for shelter from the storm. It was all I could do by appeals and threats to keep the men tolerably quiet and prevent them hustling the poor woman who hung over the rough hide bedstead which held her dying child; almost every hour she broke out into fearful shrieks and wails as she thought it had drawn its last breath. At one time some of the mozos, who seemed absolutely indifferent to the woman's trouble, began to make the night more hideous by playing on the wretched toy instruments which they had brought with them from Cajabon; but I got up and raged at them until they really seemed scared, and then one by one they rolled themselves in their blankets and dropped off to sleep. Before dawn the poor child died, and the wretched mother sobbed and groaned until morning.
The rain was still too heavy for us to make a start, and, strange to say, our Indian hosts did not show any anxiety to get rid of us, but seemed rather pleased to have someone to talk to in their trouble. Their satisfaction was
