The Caraparaná and Igaraparaná rivers, both flowing from the north-west, run parallel for about four hundred miles through dense, continuous forests, discharging into the Putumayo, the first some six hundred miles and the second some four hundred miles above the confluence of that river with the Amazon. The accompanying map renders clear these conditions, and it will be seen that the region is a considerable distance from Iquitos, nearly a thousand miles by water, the small, intermittent river steamers of the rubber traders occupying two weeks in the journey; and a part of the course lies through Brazilian waterway. A much more direct route can be made by effecting a portage from the Putumayo to the Napo River, which enters the Amazon about fifty miles below Iquitos. The Putumayo region, therefore, must be regarded as an extremely outlying part of Peru, with corresponding difficulties of access and governance. The native people inhabiting the region are mainly the Huitotos, with other tribes of more or less similar character, but with different names. These people, although known as _infieles_ and _salvages_--that is, "un-faithed" and "savage"--cannot be described as savages in the ordinary sense of the term. They have nothing in common with the bloody savages of Africa and other parts of the world. Their weapons are not adapted for taking life so much as for hunting, and although the tribes of the Amazon Valley have always fought against each other and have reduced their numbers by inter-tribal strife, they are not generally a fortress-building people, and the noiseless blow-pipe takes the place of the blood-shedding weapons of the indigenes of other lands. The Agarunas of the Marañon, however, build war-towers for defence, as do some other tribes.[3] The _tunday_ or manguare, the remarkable instrument for signalling or communicating by sound through the forest, is used by various tribes in the Amazon Valley. Most of the tribes live in great community-houses. The Indians of the Amazon Valley in general are docile and have good qualities; they are naturally free from immorality and disease; they have a strong affection for their women and children and a regard for the aged. They are well worthy of preservation, and might have been a valuable asset to the region. The particular people of the Putumayo region have decreased greatly since the advent of the rubber "industry," as has been the case all over the Amazon Valley: on the Putumayo they have been reduced, it is calculated, from forty or fifty thousand to less than ten thousand, partly by abuse and massacre, partly by having fled to more remote districts away from their persecutors.