At about six o'clock the next morning we resumed the trip, and a couple of hours later passed the mouth of the Quebrada San Miguel, a large tributary, almost as large as the Putumayo itself, on the right bank. It was here that we first made the acquaintance of a gigantic buzzing bee that followed us for hours, flying about Perkins' head in such an irritating manner that he split our best paddle in a vain endeavour to kill it. This he finally succeeded in doing, but the deceased's place was soon taken by others, who kept at poor Perkins until nightfall. They did not trouble me, probably on account of the smoke from the fire burning in the pot I got in San José. At midday Perkins took an observation for latitude, and found that we had just passed the Equator, being then a few minutes south of the Line. In order to celebrate this occurrence we both got outside of a good dram of _aguardiente_; we had made a successful "dash" to the Equator, to employ the Polar term. Soon we came to a place where the river divided into two arms, or _brazos_, a large and a small one. We chose the latter for the sake of the shade and the better chance of shooting game. As we slowly made our way through the narrow _brazo_, the branches in some places joining over our heads, the calm beauty of the luxuriant vegetation and the intense silence of the forest, broken only by the occasional shrill call of some brilliant bird or the howl of a distant tribe of monkeys, combined to make us think we were in some fairy land. Emerging at last from the shady arcade of the _brazo_, we again entered the main river, and at one o'clock reached Montepa, the last village of the Cionis, situated upon a steep knoll on the left bank. It consisted of eight or ten little bamboo huts, very similar to the other Cioni villages already described. Here we stopped a couple of hours and had a long talk with the _capitán_, who seemed to think we were very brave in making the trip without _bogas_, and as a token of his admiration offered us each a drink of _mazata_. After collecting a few more souvenirs we were about to depart, when Perkins suddenly spied an enormous catfish, which, after the inevitable haggling, we purchased. This reminded us that we had plenty of fishing-tackle ourselves, so we resolved to test our angling abilities that very night.