gh I did not
see it in use, I was given to understand that when climbing trees,
he used this stout loop to fasten his ankles together and thus secure
a tighter grip for his feet.

By evening two other savages had come in; a young married man and
his little sister. Both had bad colds. Saavedra told us that these
Indians were Pichanguerras, a subdivision of the Campa tribe. Saavedra
and his son spoke a little of their language, which sounded to our
unaccustomed ears like a succession of low grunts, breathings, and
gutturals. It was pieced out by signs. The long tunics worn by the
men indicated that they had one or more wives. Before marrying they
wear very scanty attire--nothing more than a few rags hanging over one
shoulder and tied about the waist. The long tunic, a comfortable enough
garment to wear during the cold nights, and their only covering, must
impede their progress in the jungle; yet they live partly by hunting,
using bows and arrows. We learned that these Pichanguerras had run
away from the rubber country in the lower valleys; that they found it
uncomfortably cold at this altitude, 4500 feet, but preferred freedom
in the higher valleys to serfdom on a rubber estate.

Saavedra said that he had named his plantation Conservidayoc, because
it was in truth "a spot where one may be preserved from harm." Such
was the home of the potentate from whose abode "no one had been known
to return alive."

CHAPTER XV

The Pampa of Ghosts

Two days later we left Conservidayoc for Espiritu Pampa by the trail
which Saavedra's son and our Pampaconas Indians had been clearing. We
emerged from the thickets near a promontory where there was a fine
view down the valley and particularly of a heavily wooded alluvial fan
just below us. In it were two or three small clearings and the little
oval huts of the savages of Espiritu Pampa, the "Pampa of Ghosts."

On top of the promontory was the ruin of a small, rectangular building
of rough stone, once probably an Inca watch-tower. From here to
Espiritu Pampa our trail followed an ancient stone stairway, about
four feet in width and nearly a third of a mile long. It was built of
uncut stones. Possibly it was the work of those soldiers whose chief
duty it was to watch from the top of the promontory and who used their
spare time making roads. We arrived at the principal clearing just as
a heavy thunder-shower began. The huts were empty. Obviously their
occupants had seen us coming a