Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873

To reward all these vociferous mendicants with the invaluable cutlery was hardly prudent. Seeing the hesitation of their visitors, the savages adopted other tactics. Hurling themselves across the river, they quickly reappeared, armed with all the temptations they could think of to induce the strangers to barter. The scene of these savages coming to market was a picturesque one. Entering the water, provided with their objects of exchange, which they held high above their heads, and swimming with the right arm only, they began to cut the river diagonally. The lifting of the waves and the dash of spray almost concealed the file of dusky heads. Nothing could be plainly seen but the left arms, standing out of the water as stiff and inflexible as so many bars of bronze, relieved against the silvery brightness of the water. These advancing arms were adorned with the material of traffic—bird-skins of variegated colors, bows and arrows, and live tamed parrots standing upon perches of bamboo. The white spectators could not but admire the native vigor, elegance and promptitude of their motions as they rose from the water like Tritons, and, throwing their treasures down in a heap, bounded forward to give their visitors the conventional signals of friendship. A rapid bargain was concluded, in which the sylvan booty of the wild men (not forgetting the prudent exaction of their weapons) was entirely made over to the custody of the explorers in exchange for a few Birmingham knives worth fourpence each.

However curious and amicable might be their new relations with the savages, the party were desirous to put an end to them as soon as possible. Pepe Garcia announced that the pale chiefs, wishing to resume their march, were about to separate from them. This decision appeared to be unpleasant or distressful in their estimation, and they tried to reverse it by all sorts of arguments. No answer being volunteered, they shouted to their women to await them, and betook themselves to walking with the party. One of the three ambassadors, a graceful rogue of twenty-five, marked all over with rocoa and lote, so as to earn for himself the nickname of "the Panther," gamboled and caracoled in front of the procession as if to give it an entertainment. His two comrades had garroted with their arms the neck of the chief interpreter: another held Juan of Aragon by the skirt of his blouse, and regulated his steps by those of the youth. This accord of barbarism and civilization had in it something decidedly graceful, and rather pathetic: if ever the language natural to man was found, the medium in circulation before our sickly machinery of speech came to be invented, it was in this concert of persuasive action and tender cooing notes. The main body of the Siriniris marched pellmell along with the porters, whom this vicinage made exceedingly uncomfortable, and who were perspiring in great drops.

At the commencement of a wood the whites embraced the occasion to take formal leave of their new acquaintances. As they endeavored to turn their backs upon them they were at once surrounded by the whole band, crying and gesticulating, and opposing their departure with a sort of determined playfulness.

At the same time a word often repeated, the word Huatinmio, began to enter largely into their conversation, and piqued the curiosity of the historiographer. Marcoy begged the interpreter to procure him the explanation of this perpetual shibboleth. Half by signs, half in the polyglot jargon which he had been employing with the Siriniris, Garcia managed to understand that the word in question was the name of their village, situated at a small distance and in a direction which they indicated. In this retreat, they said, no inhabitants remained but women, children and old men, the rest of the braves being absent on a chase. They proposed a visit to their capital, where the strangers, they said, honored and cherished by the tribe, might pass many enviable days.

The proposed excursion, which would cause a loss of considerable time and a deflection from the intended route, was declined in courteous terms by Marcoy through the interpretation of Pepe Garcia. Among civilized folk this urbane refusal would have sufficed, but the savages, taking such a reply as a challenge to verbal warfare, returned to the charge with increased tenacity. It were hard to say what natural logic they put in practice or what sylvan persuasions they wrought by, but their peculiar mode of stroking the white men's backs with their hands, and the softer and still softer inflections which they introduced into their voices, would have melted hearts of marble. In brief, the civilized portion adopted the more weakly part and allowed themselves to be led by the savage portion.

The colonel and Pepe Garcia were still more easily persuaded than Mr. Marcoy, and only awaited his adhesion. When it was finally announced the Siriniris renewed their gambols and uttered shouts of delight. They then took the head of the excursion. A singularity in their guides, which quickly attracted the notice of the explorers, was the perfect indifference with which they took either the clearings or the thickets in their path. Where the strangers were afraid of tearing their garments, these unprotected savages had no care whatever for their skins. It is true that their ingenuity in gliding through the labyrinth resembled magic. However the forest might bristle with undergrowth, they never thought of breaking down obstacles or of cutting them, as the equally practiced Bolivians did, with a knife. They contented themselves with putting aside with one hand the tufts of foliage as if they had been curtains or draperies, and that with an easy decision of gesture and an elegance of attitude which are hardly found outside of certain natural tribes.

The city of Huatinmio proved to be a group of seven large sheds perched among plaintains and bananas, divided into stalls, and affording shelter for a hundred individuals. The most sordid destitution—if ignorance of comfort can be called destitution—reigned everywhere around. The women were especially hideous, and on receipt of presents of small bells and large needles became additionally disagreeable in their antics of gratitude. The bells were quickly inserted in their ears, and soon the whole village was in tintinnabulation.

A night was passed in the hospitality of these barbarians, who vacated their largest cabin for their guests. A repast was served, consisting of stewed monkey: no salt was used in the cookery, but on the other hand a dose of pimento was thrown in, which brought tears to the eyes of the strangers and made them run to the water-jar as if to save their lives. The evening was spent in a general conversation with the Siriniris, who were completely mystified by the form and properties of a candle which Mr. Marcoy drew from his baggage and ignited. The wild men passed it from hand to hand, examining it, and singeing themselves in turn. Still another 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 operas, and whose deeds of mercy and edifying end in a convent entitle her to some charitable consideration, persuaded her royal lover to operate on the natives with missionaries and teachers rather than with fire and sword. Antonio Amat yielded, and the Indians have survived.

Let no traveler go to South America and cross the Andes with the idea of unearthing a Nineveh or a Babylon on the site of San Gavan. The emissaries of Don Santo Domingo were quickly standing, among the grinning and amused Indians, on the locality of the Golden Depot of San Gavan. But Nature had thoroughly reclaimed her own, and the place, indicated again and again by the savages with absolute unanimity, showed nothing but mounds of fern and moss under canopies of forest trees.

A day's rest and a sketch or two were consecrated by Marcoy to this historic spot, the grave of a civilization. It had been well if he had restrained his feelings of romance, and betaken himself with his companions to the homeward track.

As the explorers were breakfasting in the morning on a squirrel and a couple of birds shot among the vanished streets of San Gavan, a disagreeable incident supervened. The wild Indians had disappeared over-night. But now, seemingly born instantaneously from the trees, a throng of Siriniris burst upon the scene, rushing up to the travelers, straining them repeatedly in a rude embrace, then leaving them, then assaulting them again, and accompanying every contact with the eternal cry, Siruta inta menea—"Give me a knife." Each member of the troop had now six savages at his heels, and they were not those of the day before, but a new and rougher band. The chiefs of the party rushed together and brandished their muskets. This forced the savages to retire, but gave to the rencounter that hostile air which, in consideration of the disparity of numbers, ought at all hazards to have been avoided. The wild men quickly formed a circle around the artillery. The latter, fearing for their porters and the precious baggage, leaped through this circle and joined their servants, making believe to cock their fire-arms. Upon this the Indians, half afraid of the guns, vanished into the woods, first picking up whatever clothing and utensils they could lay their hands on. In an instant they were showing these trophies to their rightful owners from a safe distance, laughing as if they would split their sides. One of the naked rascals had seized a flannel undershirt of the colonel's, which was drying on a branch. His efforts to introduce his great feet into the sleeves were excruciating. Another savage had found a pair of linen pantaloons, which he was endeavoring to put on like a coat, appearing much embarrassed with the posterior portion, which completely masked his face. Aragon had seen a young reprobate of his own age make off with a pair of socks of his property. Detecting the rogue half hidden by a tree, the mozo made a sortie, seized the Indian, and by a violent shake brought the property out of his mouth, where it had been concealed as in a natural pocket.

The travelers immediately threw themselves into marching order and took up their line of route. The savages followed. At the first obstacle, a mass of matted trees, they easily rejoined the party of whites.

Then, for the first time, the idea of their power seemed to strike them, and they precipitated themselves upon the porters, who took to flight, rolling from under their packs like animals of burden. In a moment every article of baggage, every knife and weapon, was seized, and the red-skins, singing and howling, were making off through the woods. Among them was now seen the Siriniri with orioles' feathers, who must have guided them to their prey.

The expedition was pillaged, and pillaged as a joke. The thieves were heard laughing as they scampered off like deer through the woods.

It was hard to realize at once the gravity of the misfortune. No one was hurt, no one was insulted. But provisions, clothing, articles of exchange and weapons were all gone, except such arms and ammunition as the travelers carried on their persons. A collection of cinchonas was in possession of one of the Bolivians, though it represented but a fraction of the species discovered. The besiegers, however, had disappeared, and a westerly march was taken up. Good time was made that day, and a heavy night's sleep was the consequence. With the morning light came the well-remembered and hateful cry, and the little army found itself surrounded by a throng of merry naked demons, among whom were some who had not profited by the distribution of the spoils. At the magic word siruta all these new-comers rushed in a mass upon the white men. Marcoy managed to slip his fine ivory-handled machete within his trowser leg, but every other cutting tool disappeared as if by magic from the possession of the explorers. The shooting-utensils the savages, believing them haunted, would not touch. Then, half irritated at the exhaustion of the booty, the amiable children of Nature burst out into open derision. The artists of the tribe, filling their palms with rocoa, and moistening the same with saliva, went up to their late patrons and began to decorate their faces. The latter, judging patience their best policy, sat in silence while the delicate fancy of the savages expended itself in arabesques and flourishes. Perez and Aragon had their eyes surrounded with red spectacles. The face of Marcoy, covered with a heavy beard, only allowed room for a "W" on the forehead, and Pepe Garcia was quit for a set of interfacings like a checkerboard. Having thus signed their marks upon their visitors, the aborigines retired, catching up here and there a stray ball of cord or a strip of beef, saluting with the hand, and vanishing into the woods with the repeated compliment, Eminiki—"I am off."

The victims rested motionless for fifteen minutes: then pellmell, through the thickest of the brush and down the steepest of the hill, blotted out under gigantic ferns and covered by umbrageous vines, stealing along water-courses and skirting the sides of the mountains, they rushed precipitately westward.

Two months after the priest of Marcapata had dismissed with his benediction the party of confident and enthusiastic explorers, he received again his strayed flock, but this time in rags, armed with ammunitionless guns and one poor knife, wasted by hunger, baked by the sun, and tattooed like Polynesians by the briers and insects. The good man could not repress a tear. "Ah, my son," said he as he clasped Marcoy's hand, "see what it costs to go hunting the cascarilla in the land of the infidels!"

The explorations started by Don Juan Sanz de Santo Domingo came to profitable result, but not to his advantage. Three weeks after the pioneers arrived again in Cuzco, Don Juan started another expedition, on a much larger scale, to accomplish the working of the cinchona valleys, under charge of the same Bolivians, who could make like a bee for every tree they had discovered. A detachment of soldiers was to protect the party, and the working force was more than double. Finally, the night before the intended start, the Bolivian cascarilleros, with their examinador, disappeared together. It is probable that Don Juan's scheme, nursed, according to custom, with too much publicity, had attracted the attention of the merchants of Cuzco, who had found it profitable to buy off the bark-searchers for their own interest.

The crash of this immense enterprise was too much for Don Juan. Threatened with creditors, Jews, escribanos and the police, he retired to a silver-mine he was opening in the province of Abancay. This mine, in successful operation, he depended on for satisfying his creditors. He found it choked up, destroyed with a blast of powder by some enemy. Unable to bear the disappointment, Don Juan blew out his brains in the office belonging to his mine. A month afterward, Don Eugenic Mendoza y Jara, the bishop of Cuzco, sent a couple of Indians for the body, with instructions to throw it into a ditch: the men attached a rope to the feet and dragged it to a ravine, where dogs and vultures disposed of the unhallowed remains.