Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/523

Rh From the port of Tomependa, situated on the bank of the river Chinchipe, the descent to the town of the lake is made in nine days, in the manner following: from the above-mentioned port, the thirty leagues by computation to the mouth of the Imasa, are navigated by balsas in one day. It will cease to excite surprize, that these balsas should run over such a distance in ten or twelve hours, when attention is paid to the extraordinary rapidity of the united currents of the rivers Chinchipe, Chachapoyas, and Maranon. In the Intermediate distance, the following pongos occur: Rentema, Cunugiacu, Ujure, Zinquipongo, Puyaya (a little below the town of that name), Yullpa, Tariquisa, Cacangarisa (this is the narrowest of all the pongos), Yamburana, Moape, Huanguana, and sixteen others, the names of which I omit. These pongos are straits formed by high and pendant cliffs, over which the descending torrents force a passage with such a degree of violence, as to occasion terrible billows, eddies, and whirlpools, by which the balsas are submerged. The latter are composed of fifteen logs or beams of wood, twelve yards in length, and somewhat less in their united breadth, the narrowness of the pongos not admitting a greater extension. They are furnished with a lofty and solid tilt, formed of canes, beneath which the cargoes are made secure with strong cords. At the extremities, as well as at the parts where the beams are united, other beams, half a yard in height, are firmly attached in the manner of small pillars; and by these the navigators secure themselves, at the time when the balsa, which, however, speedily returns to float on the water, is submerged in the pongos. The navigation from the mouth of the Imasa to the town of la Barranca, requires five days, during which the traveller has to pass the pongos of Cumbinama,