The Andes and the Amazon; or, Across the continent of South America.

198 THE ANDES AND TIIE AMAZON.
proach to flour is yuca starch. There are no clocks or
watches; time is measured by the position of the sun. The
mean temperature at Napo village is about one degree
warmer than that of Archidona. Its altitude above the
sea is 1450 feet. The nights are cool, and there are no
musquitoes; but sand-flies are innumerable. Jiggers also
hlave been seen. Thlere are no well-defined wet and dry
seasons; but the most rain falls in May, June, and July.
The lightning, Edwards informed us, seldom strikes. Dysentery, fevers, and rheumatism are the prevailing diseases;
and we saw one case of goitre. But the climate is considered salubrious. Few twins are born; and there are fewer
children than in Archidona —a difference ascribed by some
to the exposure of the Napo people in gold washing; by
others to the greater quantity of guayusa drunk by the
Archidonians.
The Napo is the largest river in the republic. From its
source in the oriental defiles of Cotopaxi and Sincholagua
to its embouchure at the IMarailon, its length is not far
from eight hundred miles, or about twice that of the Susquehanna.i From Napo village to the mouth of the river
our barometer showed a fall of a thousand feet. At Napo
the current is six miles an hour; between Napo and Santa
Rosa there are rapids; and between Santa RPosa and the
Marafon the rate is not less than four miles an hour. At
Napo the breadth is about forty yards; at Coca the main
channel is fifteenf hundred feet wide; and at Camindo it
* Its actual source is the Rio del Valle, which runs northward through the
Valle Vicioso. Its longest tributary, the Curaray, rises only a few miles to the
south in the Cordillera de los Mulatos. The two rivers run side by side 40
of longitude before meeting. Coca, the northern branch, originates in the
flanks of Cayambi. The Napo and its branches are represented incorrectly
in every map we have examined. The Aguarico is confounded with the
Santa Maria and made too long, and the Curaray is represented too far above
the mouth of the Napo. There are no settlements between Coca and Camindo.