repeatedly confirmed to doubt them;' and then he repeats the old story, that the Indians consider the palm of a white man's hand as the greatest delicacy;' and says that it was a joke among the brancos at Egas, that he (Mr. Maw) being whiter than most people who had been there, would be more esteemed to cook by the Indians.' He adds,

"We were told, that although the prisoners are kept in corals, the owners do not treat them with cruelty. When a human being is wanted to cook, the owner takes his pucuna, and having fixed upon his object blows a poisoned arrow; the victim falls, and is dragged out without the others regarding it-custom and necessity having led them to consider such practices not incorrect. The vicargeneral of the Rio Negro told us an anecdote of a girl, whom a branco offered to purchase of one of these owners, but who chose rather to stay with her relations and be eaten when her turn came, than save her life as the branco's slave.'Maw, p. 272.

It has often surprised us that sensible travellers should report such hearsay stories about anthropophagi, on such slight grounds. Of that dire necessity which, in the extremity of hunger, may have driven the unfortunate sufferers to the loathsome and revolting act of devouring the flesh of their own species, we have but too many well-authenticated examples. We are afraid, too, Mr. Earle has left little doubt that the ferocious Zealander, thirsting for revenge, and in a moment of excitement, will tear the flesh of a captive enemy; but we are slow to believe that any people,-at least any above the most abject condition of the savage-are in the habit of using human flesh as a luxury-dog no eat dog,' as the negro says. A friend of ours, who had resided and travelled some time in New Zealand, was very indignant at our doubting the veracity of one of the chiefs-who had amused him with an account of the delicious repasts which he frequently indulged in, afforded by the flesh of a young girl-and boasted that he had recently caught the wife of a hostile chief while bathing, whose carcase, after being steamed with potatoes, made a glorious feast. The late Mr. Alexander Dalrymple, the hydrographer of the Admiralty, used to say, that he had scen most parts of the world himself, and believed he had read every account of voyages and travels that had ever been published; but that he had never met one tittle of evidence on the question of man-eating, that would be received in a court of justice. We have ourselves heard and read abundance of stories about cannibalism, but, like those of our present two travellers, they were all, with the solitary exception of Earle's, told at second hand-we have not yet met with one, but Mr. Earle, who ever pretended to have been an eye-witness to the fact

of

of such a banquet deliberately prepared and enjoyed; and though we are not at all disposed to impeach Mr. Earle's veracity, we should much like to have some clear evidence that he was not hoaxed-in terrorem. We shall be told of the Battas, a civilized people on the island of Sumatra, who read and write, and are in the possession of a written code of laws, who nevertheless condemn, judicially, culprits of certain descriptions to be killed and eaten in the public market-place; but no person, that we, at least, have ever heard of, pretends to have seen such a sentence put into execution; and if the fact was not vouched by two such names as those of the late Sir Stamford Raffles and Mr. Marsden, neither of whom, though residents on the island, ever saw it, we should have deemed it incredible, and considered it as a mere fiction of law, and that the eating was purely metaphorical. After all, Lieut. Smyth, in concluding his account of the Cashibos cannibals, appears to have some doubt on the subject. He observes, that the notion which prevails of their devouring persons of their own tribe, to any extent, or as a regular article of food, seems to be sufficiently contradicted by the increase of their population.' He might have added a further contradiction, which is this, that the inhabitants of a country like this, 'producing spontaneously, in the greatest profusion, so many regular articles of food,' can have no necessity to resort to such unnatural means of support.

In all the great branches of the Amazon, and in the river itself, the inhabitants have the benefit of vast numbers of the vacca marina, or large seal, whose flesh is eaten, and which yields them. abundance of oil; they have also the common seal; and the tarturuga or churupa (turtle), in such immense quantities, that in the dry season, every sand-bank and beach is covered with them. From the multitude of eggs, deposited on land by these creatures, is extracted an oil, which serves for the lamps, and is also mixed with their food. Porpoises are almost as numerous as the turtle; and Mr. Smyth says, there are besides in these rivers five different kinds of large fish, and twelve or thirteen smaller, all habitually caught, and all excellent. Of fruits and vegetables there is an endless profusion, growing spontaneously for the most part, and the rest obtained almost without labour-those from Europe or the West Indies being mostly the descendants of the plants introduced and reared by the Jesuits; such as pine-apples of an enormous size, guavas, oranges, lemons, limes, plantains of various kinds, pomegranates, quinces, peaches, melons, watermelons, custard-apples, besides countless cherimoyas, petiguyas, &c. &c., whose native names, given by Maw and Smyth,

C 2

convey

convey no idea of what they are or what they resemble. Of esculent vegetables they have most of those common to Europe, and they cultivate manioca and Indian corn. In every part of the extensive Pampa, and indeed, in all the valleys and plains in the midst of the Cordilleras, the following articles of general use, or for commercial purposes, are abundantly produced;the cocoa-tree, vanilla, coffee and sugar-cane, cotton, indigo, anatto, and other dye-stuffs, gums and resins, balsam of capivi, sarsaparilla, coarse cinnamon or cassia, caoutchouc or Indian rubber (ficus elastica)—and a great variety of fine timber trees. The caoutchouc alone, since its general application in the arts and manufactures, would furnish a lucrative article in trade; but most of these products are lost to commerce for want of a commodious and ready conveyance-a want which, from the general rapidity of these rivers, can only be supplied by the adoption of steam-vessels; and we agree with Mr. Maw that, under settled and liberal governments, small vessels of this description would soon be employed in coasting and bringing to market many of the above-enumerated valuable articles.

Those Indians of the various tribes, whom Padre Plaza of Sarayacu has collected round him, may be considered as living within the pale, and to have felt the benefits, of civilization; but it would appear that little attention has been paid by the Padre to the education of his flock, as Mr. Smyth doubts whether an Indian in the whole mission knows the letters of the alphabet. They appear, however, to be happy and contented, and good order seemed to prevail in the town-that is to say, except when drunkenness, the parent of all other vices, was the rule of the day. The governor was an active and intelligent young Indian who, every morning, with his staff of office, waited upon the Padre, kissed his hand, and received his blessing. The Padre frequently admonishes them against their besetting sin, and this governor seems to do so too, but all without effect. Mr. Smyth gives an amusing account of the way in which Shrove Tuesday and the remainder of the week are passed. Two huge cabbage-palms were cut down and planted in front of the Padre's house, the branches of which were hung with small looking-glasses, handkerchiefs, and trinkets of various kinds.

"Towards four o'clock all the village assembled before the Convento, each carrying something in his hand or hanging on his back; the Padre then presented himself in the verandah, where he took his seat with a large basket by his side, and all the mission-boys in attendance upon him. No sooner was he observed by the crowd, than they all came dancing towards him, and cach, kissing his hand, placed his gift (which

was

was some article of provision), slung by a string, over his neck. So thick did these presents come, that the old man had some difficulty in supporting the weight, and extricating himself from the load; and many, who could not get at him for the crowd, were obliged to deposit their donations in the basket, which the boys were constantly carrying off to the larder to empty. When they had all made their oblations, the Padre gave them a lecture on their conduct during the ensuing week's fast. No sooner was his harangue ended, than they surrounded the largest palm-tree; a woman came forward with an axe, which she applied vigorously to the foot of the tree; the crowd retreated as far as the length of the trunk might extend; the tree fell, and a most amusing scramble for the mirrors and handkerchiefs took place. The same ceremony was performed with the second tree, and the assembly dispersed, and passed the night in riot and intoxication.'— Smyth, pp. 218, 219.

From the Padre Lieutenant Smyth received much information respecting the various tribes inhabiting the Pampa del Sacramento, who have not yet been brought within the pale of Christianity. He had visited most of them, and one in particular, the Sencis, he described as a bold, warlike, and generous tribe, who are on friendly terms with the Indians of the mission, and occasionally come in large numbers to Sarayacu to barter for iron, beads, and other articles. They are considered as the greatest warriors on the banks of the Ucayali, and, indeed, esteem courage as the first, if not the only, virtue of a man. They certainly, by the Padre's account, put his courage to the test when he first entered their country, and was made a prisoner by them.

'As he understood their language, he was able to explain to them the object of his visit: they conducted him to their village, and asked him whether he was brave, and subjected him to the following trial. Eight or ten men, armed with bows and arrows, placed themselves a few yards in front of him, with their bows drawn and their arrows directed at his breast; they then, with a shout, let go the strings, but retained the arrows in their left hands, which he at first did not perceive, but took it for granted that it was all over with him, and was astonished at finding himself unhurt. He thinks that, if he had shown any signs of fear, he would probably have been dispatched. Having withstood the feint steadily, they gave him a second trial; they resumed their former position, and approaching somewhat nearer, they aimed the arrows at his body, but discharged them close to his feet. He assured us that it was very nervous work, but having, in his capacity of missionary, been a long time subjected to the caprices of the Indians, he had made up his mind for the worst, and stood quite motionless during the proof. As the Indians saw no symptoms of fear in him, they surrounded him, and received him as a welcome guest; the women made their appearance, and the ceremony concluded with deep potations of masata and dancing.'Smyth, pp. 227, 228.

Mr. Maw had heard that it was the custom among the Sencis

to

to burn the dead and drink the ashes in chica; and that another tribe, the Capahanuas, or Capanaguas, from a sort of piety, eat their deceased parents, smoking and roasting them in the same manner as they do the animals that they catch in the woods! Padre Plaza, however, assured Mr. Smyth that these stories are mere inventions.

Mr. Smyth remained a month at Sarayacu, until the Padre had completed a cargo of sarsaparilla, tucuya (cotton cloth), and manteca (turtle oil), which he was about to send to San Pablo under the charge of his nephew, as supercargo. The Lieutenant having, by this time, procured a boat forty-five feet long by six feet wide, and laid in a stock of provisions, he and his companion took leave of the Padre and their Peruvian friends Major Beltran and Lieutenant Azcarate; and on the 6th March dropped down the noble river Ucayali. On the morning of the 15th they entered the majestic stream of the Marañon or Amazon, which was here at least half as broad again as the Ucayali at the point of their confluence, that is to say, about two miles across; its opposite shore high and beautifully clothed with trees, forming one continuous forest, both up and down the river, as far as the eye could reach. The Ucayali is also a noble river: in fact, as Condamine has said, it, and not the Marañon branch, is the true source of the Amazon. It rises, as we have said, on the eastern side of the Great Cordillera out of the lake Chinchaycocha about the latitude 11° 15', takes a south-easterly course, hitherto unexplored, turns to the north-westward, being joined by the Pachitea in about 9° 30', and continues to flow in that direction till it joins the Marañon in latitude 4° 40'. A little below the point of confluence is the island of Omaguas, once a place of considerable note as a station of the Jesuits-but now reduced to eighty or ninety families, who subsist chiefly by fishing: they are described by Sinyth as a finer race of people than any he had yet seen. Nauta is a little above the junction, and the village is said to contain 600 inhabitants, who call themselves Christians, and have a church, but no priest, the governor, who wore neither shoes nor stockings, performing mass for the poor people, whose chief occupation, like that of the Omaguas, is the fishery. This establishment is very recent-it would seem not to have existed even in Mr. Maw's time.

About 120 miles from this place, down the Amazon, the river Napo falls into it from the north-west. This was the stream on which Orellana embarked on leaving Quito, in the year 1539, for an enterprise not less remarkable than any in which ever adventurer engaged. The village of Pebas, seventy or eighty miles still farther down the stream, had a population of 200 to 300 of the Yuguas, a race of men which inhabit a large tract of country on

both