y, which has supplanted
the old system of the _curacas_, or caciques.

At one period the missions of the Napo were both numerous and powerful.
That was while they were under the superintendence of those active
apostles, the Jesuit fathers; but most of their settlements have long
ago disappeared; and now only a few sparse stations exist along the
borders of the great _Montana_.

In ascending the Napo, our travellers had an opportunity of visiting
some of these old missionary establishments; and observing the odd
rigmarole of superstitions there practised under the guise, and in the
name of religion--a queer commingling of pagan rites with Christian
ceremonies--not unlike those Buddhistic forms from which these same
ceremonies have been borrowed.

One advantage our travellers derived from the existence of these
stations: they were enabled to obtain from them the provisions required
upon their long riverine voyage; and without this assistance they would
have found it much more difficult to accomplish such a journey.

Beyond Archidona the rest of the journey to Quito would have to be
performed on horseback, or rather muleback; but they were not going
direct to Quito. Between them and the old Peruvian capital lay the
eastern Cordillera of the Andes, and it was along its declivities, and
in the valleys between its transverse spurs, facing the Montana, they
would have to search for the haunts of the bear.

On the Napo itself, still higher up than Archidona--where the stream,
fed by the snows of the grand volcano of Cotopaxi, issues from the spurs
of the Andes--there were they most likely to accomplish the object of
their expedition, and thither determined they to go.

Having procured mules and a guide, they proceeded onward; and after a
journey of three days--in which, from the difficulty of the roads, they
had travelled less than fifty miles--they found themselves among the
foot-hills of the Andes--the giant Cotopaxi with his snowy cone towering
stupendous above their heads.

Here they were in the proper range of the bears--a part of the country
famous for the great numbers of these animals--and it only remained for
them to fix their headquarters in some village, and make arrangements
for prosecuting the chase.

The little town of Napo, called after the river, and situated as it is
in the midst of a forest wilderness, offered all the advantages they
required; and, choosing it as their temporary residence, they were