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Alexander Wetmore
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mes OF A BOTANIST
ON THE
|AZON SiN ANDES.
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MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON - BOMBAY +» CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
NEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO
ATLANTA + SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILEAN CO. OF CANADA, ina:
TORONTO
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_.NOTES OF A BOTANIST
ON Shite
AMAZON &© ANDES
BEING RECORDS OF TRAVEL ON THE AMAZON AND
ITS TRIBUTARIES, THE TROMBETAS, RIO NEGRO,
UAUPES, CASIQUIARI, PACIMONI, HUALLAGA,
AND ePASEASA. AS ALSO FO THE CATAR-
ACTS OF THE ORINOCO, ALONG THE
EASTERN SIDE OF THE ANDES OF
PERU AND ECUADOR, AND THE
SHORES OF THE PACIFIC,
DURING THE YEARS
1849-1864
By RICHARD SPRUCE, Pu.D.
EDITED AND CONDENSED BY
Pent oRUSsSSEL WALLACE, O-M., F.R:S.
WITH A
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION
PORTRAIT, SEVENTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS
AND
SEVEN MAPS
INSEE OSV OLUMES=VOLM it
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1908
EMIT HSON/A7
] Roman ao on mee
Lo to the wintry winds the pilot yields
His bark careering o’er untrodden fields ;
Now on Atlantic waves he rides afar
Where Andes, giant of the western star,
With meteor standard to the winds unfurl’d,
Looks from his throne of clouds o’er half the world.
CAMPBELL.
The sounding Cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite, a feeling, and a love.
WORDSWORTH.
CONLE NS
QE ME IVER. XV
FROM BARRA DO RIO NEGRO TO TARAPOTO, PERU
PAGE
Voyage up the Solimoés—Floating trees—River Puris—Sao
Paulo—The forest—-Notes on vegetation—Tabatinga—
Loreto—N ovel vegetation—Cochiquina—Iquitos—Nauta,
where detained two weeks—-San Regis— Parinari—A
Zambo Governor—Urarinas—-A peccary hunt—Enter the
Huallaga—La Laguna—First view of the Andes—Yuri-
maguas described—-An excellent priest—The officials—
Industry—Up the Huallaga— Hot-water streams—Rapids
— Curi-yacu——Chasuta— Detained two days— Difficult
rapids— Picturesque scenery New plants—Chapaja—
Enter the Mayo river—The Cumbasa river—Juan Guerra
the port for Tarapoto—Letter to Mr. Teasdale, a personal
and social account of the voyage—Letter to Mr. G.
Bentham, a tragic incident—To Mr. Teasdale, end of the
journey Aas : ; E
CEA P ith XV i
RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO: EXPLORATION OF THE EASTERN
ANDES OF PERU
Spruce’s house and garden—Indian village of Cumbasa—A
pleasant scene—The country around Tarapoto—F lowering
trees and shrubs—The banks of the Shillicaio—Night-
blooming trees—Situation of the town——Lamas, the oldest
town -— Moyobamba — Climate— Northern plants in the
mountains—Letterto Mr. Bentham— Interesting vegetation
%
Vi NOTES OF= A bOTANISak
PAGE
—Rocky stream and ravines—F ine ferns—Noroadsor paths
to travel on—Excursion to La Campana—Hill of Lamas—
The Inhabitants—An intelligent padre—Tabalosos—Over
the pass to Lirio-pampa—The Indian Chumbi bitten
on the wrist by a venomous snake—Terrible effects—
Near death—Spruce’s remedies succeeded in saving the
Indian’s life—And probably his own !—FEffects of stinging
caterpillar — Letter to Mr. Bentham, difficulties of a
botanical collector —Hauxwell the bird-collector—Later
letters to Mr. Bentham—Revolution described in letter to
Mr. Teasdale—The chief botanical excursions, compiled
from notes, by the Editor : ; : 37
CE APsLERR Xe
VOYAGE IN SMALI. CANOES FROM TARAPOTO TO CANELOS
ON THE BOMBONASA RIVER
By road to Chasuta—Canoe in a whirlpool—Dog driven mad,
had to be shot—Delay at La Laguna—Self-flagellation of
Indians—U p the Marafon— Deserted villages—Enter the
Pastasa—Another dog shot !—-Deserted pueblo of San-
tander—Continuous rain in a deserted river— Pinches
nuevo—At Andoas, delayed five days—Indians described
—A kind Governor—Andoas to Sara-yacu on the Bom-
bonasa— Indians’ morning toilet—-Pass mouth of the
Puca-yacu—Passed the Sara-yacu—Pueblo of Sara-yacu
—On to Puca-yacu village—A dangerous flood—Descrip-
tion of Puca-yacu——Detained three weeks for men—
The Spaniards leave with the only men—-A grand view
of the Andes—On to Canelos_ . : ree
CHAP WabaR ev all
THROUGH THE FOREST OF CANELOS TO BANOS
Enter the Forest of Canelos—Nightly shelters described—
Along ridges and precipices— Delayed by a swollen torrent
A Jibaro Indian’s hut—Delayed three days—On to
Mount Abitagua—The mossiest spot in the world—And
the rainiest !—-Crossed the flooded Shuna river—On to
the Topo—Delayed two nights— Perilous crossing—
Leist
Letter to Mr. Bentham—War with Peru—To Quito and
CONTE NAS
Goods all left in the forest !—Sugar-mill on Rio Verde
—Reached Baflos—General account of the forest of
Canelos— Second visit to Mount Abitagua— Notes on
the vegetation of the forest of Canelos
Cea dei Re EX
BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS IN THE ANDES OF ECUADOR :
AT BANOS AND AMBATO
of Excursions— Letter to Mr. Bentham—Spruce’s sad
position at Bafios awaiting his goods from the forest—How
he collected mosses on the road—New ferns in abundance
—Description of Banos—-Grand cone of Tunguragua—
Paper unobtainable—European genera of plants—Letter
to Mr. Teasdale—Bafios, its hot baths, visitors, and earth-
quakes—To Ambato—lIts situation and surroundings—
Manners and customs of the people— Effects of sand-
storms—To Riobamba—Dr, James Taylor—Views of
Chimborazo — Mountain travel — Market-day — Great
mountains round it——Great cataract of Guandisagua —
Society in Ambato—Botanical letter to Mr. Bentham—
To Sir W. Hooker, mostly about Ferns—To Mr. Ben-
tham on probable number of species in the Amazon valley
—Spruce’s grief at passing new plants ungathered—To
Sir W. Hooker, about mosses, etc.—To Mr. Bentham,
about the Venezuelan collections and its rich rivers unex-
plored—His great indebtedness to Mr. Bentham——To Mr.
Teasdale about his journeys in the high Andes—Beautiful
Gentians—Why they cannot be grown in England—An
escape from a condor—Wishes England possessed the
Amazon valley .
CJobacied dd 2.0.
AMBATO AND THE CINCHONA FORESTS OF ALAUSI
forest of Pallatanga—The warm forests far less known
botanically than the mountains—Letter to Mr. Teasdale,
it
Vill NOTES OF A BORA NISg
PAGE
about Indians and Christianity——A severe earthquake—
The Cinchona forests of Alausi—Explorations for “Bark’’
trees and descriptions of the vegetation—The Revolution
—Sanitation in Ecuador ; : : Li Se
CHAPS ER. 2a
THE CINCHONA FORESTS OF WESTERN CHIMBORAZO
List of excursions—-Report on the ‘‘Red Bark” expedition—
Journey to the forest—-On the Paramo—The Arenal—
Its curious Alpine vegetation—-Flower-clad mountain
side—At Guaranda delayed some days——Over another
ridge of Chimborazo—A dangerous descent—Fine Mela-
stomaceze—-At Limon saw first ‘‘ Red Bark” trees—
Occupy a trapiche (cane-mill)—-A fine forest—The
“bark” supposed to be a dye—How the bark is
collected—The Cznchona succirubra a most beautiful
tree—The mammals and birds of the forest—Insects—
Large forest trees—-The vegetation of the Red Bark
forests—Arrival of Mr. Cross—Preparations for gather-
ing, drying, and raising seeds and cuttings— Difficulties
to overcome—Troubles from the war
Spruce takes the
dried seeds to Guayaquil—Back to Aguacatal to build a
raft—Letter to Mr. Teasdale describing Guayaquil—Con-
struction of raft—-Waiting for the young plants—The
dangerous raft-journey to Guayaquil—Success of the
plants in India . : : | ae
CHAPTER. oxi
SPRUCE’S LAST THREE YEARS IN SOUTH AMERICA: ON THE
SHORES OF THE PACIFIC
List of excursions—-Letter to Mr. Bentham—Spruce’s mode
of botanical work——Botanical notes—The climate of the
coast—The loss of his property —To Mr. Daniel Hanbury .
—To Mr. John Teasdale—Journey to Piura—The
climate and the inhabitants—Notes on the valleys of:
CONTENTS 1X
PAGE
Piura and Chira—Topography -and mineralogy—Indig-
enous vegetation—To Mr. Bentham—To Mr. Daniel
Hanbury (after his return to England) . Eek
CHAPTER: XXIII
LETTERS AND ARTICLES RELATING TO HIS AMAZONIAN TRAVELS
Spruce to Hanbury—On the winter sun and leafless trees—
Spruce’s account of Santander—Santander’s letter to
Spruce—Spruce to Hanbury—Santander to Spruce—
Essay on the Characteristics of Amazonian Vegeta-
tion—The relations of Plants and Animals—Some cases
of insect migration—Migrations of birds and mammals—
Concluding remarks : ; 343
CHAPTER XXIV
ON ANT-AGENCY IN PLANT-STRUCTURE
Introductory remarks—Letter from Darwin—Letter from the
Secretary of the Linnean Society—-The paper—Of Sac-
bearing Leaves——Of Inflated Petioles——Of Inflated
Branches—Of Elongated and Fistulose Stemsand Branches
—Other evidence, with some remarks by the Editor shew!
GCEEAPT ER Xx
ON INDIGENOUS NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS, WITH THEIR
USES BY THE INDIANS
Remarkable narcotics of the Amazon and Orinoco—The use
and effects of caapi—Niopo snuff and the mode of using
it Medicine-men and their customs— On spirits or
demons among the Indians—-A strange occurrence and
its explanation—Rarity of curative drugs among the Indi-
genes—Nerve-stimulants used by the Indians—Use of
guarana as a tonic—Guayusa, a tonic used in the Eastern
Andes—Conclusion : : ee ii te)
5 NOTES OF A BOTANIST
CHAPTER XVI
THE WOMEN-WARRIORS OF THE AMAZON: A HISTORICAL STUDY
Orellana’s report to Charles V.—Confirmatory statements—
Historians agree in their reality—Condamine’s testimony
—The green Amazon stones—Velasco’s testimony—
Raleigh’s statement—-Van Heuvel—Acuiia’s conclusion
CHAP TGR sxXxwval
PAGE
456
THE ENGRAVED ROCKS OF THE RIO NEGRO AND CASIQUIARI
Indian picture-writing—The Laja de Capibara—What the
figures mean—Figures at the Cano Calipo—The Paa-
purfs figures and their history—At Jauarité—Discussion
of their origin and purport
CHA PTE ROX Xxwiit
A HIDDEN TREASURE OF THE INCAS
The story of Valverde and his riches — The “ Derrotero”
or Guide to Llanganati—Don Atanasio Guzman, the
botanist—-His map of Llanganati—Lent to Spruce and
he copies it—Description of it—Spruce obtains a copy
of the ‘‘ Derrotero” and translates it—The translation—
Spruce’s account of the attempts to find the treasure by
means of the ‘‘ Guide ”—Their failure—Explanation of the
Quichua terms on the map—Editor’s Critical Note con-
firmatory of the accuracy of Valverde’s ‘ Guide,” and
suggesting another expedition
GLOSSARY OF NATIVE NAMES
INDEX
474
489
519
525
FIG,
N
9 0D OY DAH SE w
Yurimaguas, on the River Huallaga.
Reve StRrAtTions
Tarapoto, from the South-West. (R. S.)
Lamas, looking North-Eastward. (R.S
Mountains north of Tarapoto,
(Rass
(R. S.)
)
View from Tabalosos, looking across the Mayo.
Vegetable Ivory Palm .
Tunguragua, from the North
Ambato, Chimborazo in the distance
Quito, on South-East Slope of Pichincha
. Plan of a Priest’s House.
. Riobamba and the Eastern Cordillera
(R. S.)
. Chimborazo, from the Paramo of Sanancajas
Indians of Province of Quito (four Portraits)
. Indian Sacred Drum or Trumpet.
. Group of Rock-Pictures on Casiquiari.
on Rio Uaupés.
2)
Xl
GROSS)
GREG)
(Re Sh
. Chimborazo and Carguairazo, from near Riobamba
)
Uf
PAGE
zy:
13
AI
55
94
97
133
179
187
193
197
201
215
253
255
417
477
479
480
ASI
482
484
485
Xl NOTES OF Abort aNist
MAPS
1. Sketch Map of Tarapoto District : To face page 100
2. Map of the Central Andes of Ecuador 33 A 220
3. Map of the Red Bark Forests of Ecuador a yt Che
Map of the Mountains of Llanganati .. End of Volume
Ci Ae Ry ey
FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES UP THE SOLIMOES:
FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO, PERU
(March 14 to June 22, 1855)
[Turis chapter consists largely of a full and very
descriptive Journal, which required comparatively
little pruning ; and this is supplemented by letters
to Messrs. Teasdale and Bentham, giving to the
former vivid sketches of scenery and of the pass-
engers on the steamer, and to the latter an account
of one of the numerous personal dangers of which
Spruce had his full share, though from all of them
he escaped with his life. |
VOYAGE UP THE SOLIMOEFS
( Journal)
March 14, 1855.—Embarked on the Mozarca,
an iron steamer of 35 horse-power, built at Rio de
Janeiro. We left the port of Barra at six the next
morning, and | enjoyed much the rapid run up the
Solimoés, contrasting strongly with the painful way
in which we crept up in a canoe in 1851, when it
took a week to reach Manaquiry. In the steamer
we spent but ten hours. The river appears more
VOL, II 1 B
2 NOTES OF 2BOTANISa CHAP.
than half full, and the current is strong. There
are numerous floating trunks and small grass-islands.
At night it was very dark, and we frequently struck
against these trunks, sometimes with a considerable
shock which made us all run on deck, but no damage
was done. On the afternoon of the 17th we passed
the mouth of the large river Purus, which enters
from the south. It is not wide but brings down
a large volume of white water.
Between Coary and Ega there is a long range
of cliffs, which are much bored by kingfishers and
by a small white-bellied sand-martin, scarcely larger
than a humming-bird. .. .
On the 25th we reached Sad Paulo d’ Olivenga
about noon. It stands on very high land, rising
abruptly from the river about a hundred feet, but
the site is flat and the village contains several
regular streets, though the houses are mostly
miserable. The great concourse of people here
is owing to its being the residence of a padre
who suits them excellently and conforms in every-
thing to their way of life, ze. he is a gambler and
indulges in every other vice of the country.
I took a turn in the forest. The soil is a deep
clay, in hollows scarcely passable in rainy weather.
The valleys are all traversed by streams of clear
water, and abound in tree-ferns, but apparently all
of one common species. The caapoera vegetation
is very luxuriant and comprised much that was
new to me, especially a shrubby papilionaceous
climber with delicate pinnate leaves (resembling
Abrus tenutfotius) and largish scarlet flowers, which
hung in large masses from the lower trees and
bushes. Also a low Nonatelia (Cinchonacez) with
xv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 3
large corymbs of pretty purple flowers. On one
clayey slope was a large bed of Umiri (Humirium
sp.) with ripe fruit, which the numerous cattle
(belonging chiefly to the Padre) pick up as they fall.
Two Monimiacez, one with very large Melastoma-
like leaves and large fruits, I have not seen before.
The other is very near a Uaupés species.’
NOTES ON THE VEGETATION OF THE SOLIMOES
The sloping banks clad with long grass form a strong contrast
to those of the Rio Negro. On the islands the chief vegetation is
Salix Humboldtiana and a Cecropia, with a rather inelegant
bamboo supporting itself on them. The white trunks of the
trees are very remarkable—actually white with a crust of rudi-
mentary lichens, especially those of Cecropia. The foliage at
this season is rather ragged and scanty, but when the rising or
setting sun illuminates the white skeleton, the dots of green on
the extremities of the branchlets have a pretty effect. This is
particularly noticeable in places where the winds have broken
el the tops of the trees.
Of palms the Murumurti is abundant. An elegant Bactris
(probably B. concinna, Mart.) about 18 feet high grows in broad
patches. It is abundant at Yurimaguas on the Huallaga.
A Loranthus with large red flowers tipped with yellow grows
on many different trees—very often on Imba-tiba and a species
of Maclura. Several Ingas are in flower, and Z7<plarts surt-
namensis (Polyonaceze) is frequent. The Arrow-reed abounds
on low coasts and islands, and in similar places there are often
low trees whose trunks are draped with a species of Batatas.
Here and there in the gapé is to be seen a Nutmeg tree 50 feet
high or more, its branches nearly horizontal, but often bent up
abruptly into a vertical position about midway.
FROM THE MOUTH OF THE PURUS TO THAT OF THE COARY
Very frequent in clumps is the fine Pao Mulatto, 50 to 70 feet
high, with lead-coloured bark and large umbels of white flowers. A
1 [Readers of Bates’s Matuvalist on the Amazons will remember that this was
his farthest station on the river, that he stayed here five months (a year later
than Spruce’s visit), and that he speaks of its luxuriance in every department
of natural history with the greatest enthusiasm, adding, that five years would
not be sufficient to exhaust its treasures in zoology and botany. In particular,
the numerous pebbly streams, and the magnificent vegetation on their banks,
surpassed anything he had seen during his ten years of forest ramblings. —ED. ]
4 NOTES- OF AUBOPANISa CHAP.
thickish Imba-tiba (Cecropia) has the bark mottled with red and
white as in the Bread-fruit tree. In some,places is an Anonaceous
tree, about 30 feet high, with a profusion of flowers in small
axillary clusters on the upper side of the long branchlets. The
solitary tall Assai palm is very scarce, occurring only towards the
mouth of the Coary.
A remarkable tree occurs below Coary, 50 feet high, the top
spreading, the lanceolate pale green leaves clustered on the ends
of slender twigs, the flower-stalks long, descending then ascend-
ing, growing on the main branches and trunk nearly to the base,
fruits pendent, globular, size of an orange, but said when ripe to
be much larger, having a hard shell with four seeds. It is probably
a species of Couroupita (Lecythideze).
Much wild Cacao is seen on the margins and as far within as
the inundation extends—conspicuous from its young red leaves.
There is generally much Castanha (Brazil-nut) in the forests.
At Tabatinga I gathered flowers of a small Composite tree
growing 6 to 15 feet high and looking very like a willow. It is
the Zessaria legitima, DC., and had been noticed from the mouth
of the Japura upwards.
A Serjania (Sapindacez) with large masses of red capsules is
now very frequent, and a low Copaifera in flower grows here and
there by the water’s edge.. The Pao Mulatto continues very
abundant and our firewood consists wholly of this species. ‘There
is no handsomer tree in the gapd. It sometimes reaches near
too feet high. It is branched from about the middle, and the
top forms a narrow inverted cone. The surface of the trunk and
branches is somewhat wavy or corrugated, but the bark is quite
smooth and shining. WhenI wentto Manaquiry in June 1851 the
trees were shedding their bark, the process being a longitudinal split-
ting up in one or more places, and a rolling back from both edges of
the rupture. The young bark thus exposed is green, but it speedily
assumes a deep bronze or leaden hue, and finally a chestnut
colour—hence its name.! Some small Rubiaceous trees have the
same property; for instance, Luzosmia corymbosa and a tree in
the forest at Yurimaguas, with leaves resembling those of a Nona-
telia, but the bark is greener than that of the Pao Mulatto. With
this latter tree, on the Solimoés, frequently grows the Castanheiro
do Macaco, with globular brown fruits, probably a species of
Couroupita.
JOURNAL (continued)
March 27.—At 4 P.M. we reached Tabatinga,
the frontier town of Brazil, situated on the north
1 [This tree was, later, collected by Spruce, and being new was named by
Mr. Bentham Evkylesta Spruceana. It belongs to the Cinchonacez. ]
xv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO — 5
bank, a miserable place containing scarcely any
houses but those of the garrison, though a little
to the eastward, across a small valley, is a village
of the Tucano Indians. The barracks consist of
two small, low ranchos, and there is no fort, though
I saw two or three pieces of cannon laid on the
ground. The soil is clayey and the vegetation
luxuriant.
Early on the 29th we reached Loreto, the first
town in Peru and decidedly better than Tabatinga,
having some good houses. The white inhabitants,
however (even the Governor), are Portuguese.
March 30.—Coasting the south bank of the
river, the land being somewhat high and settlements |
more frequent. The vegetation here was more
new and striking than any I had seen during the
voyage. AQ little inland grew a very handsome
palm (Attalea), resembling the Palma Yagua of the
Orinoco, but rather smaller and with pendulous
bunches of small hard red fruits.
Here I first saw the Bombonaji, a palmate-leaved
Carludovica. It grows on steep red banks, and is
submersed when the river is at its height. Several
other trees in flower and fruit were quite new to me.
In the afternoon we reached Cochiquina on the
south bank, inhabited by Mayironas, that is, Indians
from the Rio Mayo. At this season there is a
small lagoon between it and the river which makes
it difficult of access. The Indians are numerous,
and apparently very submissive to the Gobernador
(the only white inhabitant) and to their Curdcas or
chiefs, who go about with polished walking-sticks
headed with silver. There are plenty of pigs and
Somwis, lhe houses’are kept in better repair and
6 NOTES OF “A BOPANISE CHAP.
the weeds kept down more than in Brazilian
villages. About 1000 sticks of firewood were
embarked here in two hours.
On April 1 we reached Iquitos, a considerable
village on the north bank at the mouth of a small
stream of black water. It contains many people
of mixed race, besides a great many Iquitos Indians
who inhabit the western portion of the village.’
Here I first saw the fruit of a remarkable palm-like
Pandanacez (Phytelephas) allied to the plant that
produces the vegetable ivory.
On April 2, reached Nauta, on the north bank,
a few miles above the mouth of the Ucayali, which
enters from the south—a river equal in size to the
Maranon itself. Nauta stands on rising ground
from 30 to 60 feet above the river, Whe-somers
sandy with some mixture of clay near the river.
At the back the ground goes on gently rising for
a considerable distance, only interrupted by rivulets.
In the second growth on old clearings, the most
curious feature is the absence of Selaginella, so
constant in such places on the Amazon and Rio
Negro. There is, however, a common Adiantum
and a low tree-fern.
[As the steamer went no farther, Spruce had to -
wait a fortnight at Nauta before he could hire two
canoes with the necessary Indians to take him and
his goods up to Yurimaguas on the river Huallaga.
In the intervals of this work he collected such
1 Tquitos is now a town of about 10,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of
the Peruvian province of Loreto, and the centre of the rubber trade of the
Ucayali, the Napo, and all the higher tributaries of the Amazon. There is a
monthly communication with Para by river steamers, while at longer intervals
steamers make the through journey from Liverpool to this inland’ port within
sight of the lower ranges of the Andes.
sy FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO- 7
plants in flower as were new to him, and noted
several others, but as he does not seem to have
reached the virgin forest these were not very
numerous. He notes generally that the river-bank
vegetation was here identical in its main features
with that of the river below. In a small side-
channel near the village he noted a twining Bigno-
niacea with long white flowers in axillary clusters
resembling those of a Posoqueria; a sweet-smelling
Calyptrion (Violacez); a Maclura laden with pendent
catkins, like those of a hazel; a spreading tree
with clusters of winged fruits, apparently one of
the Ulmacez, and several others not in flower
which were quite new to him.
The Journal of his voyage (now in canoes) con-
tinues :-—|
April 16.—Left Nauta at noon. Passed along
low shores. Besides the Sahx Humboldtiane,
two other willow-like trees were noticed for the
first time. At 8 p.m. reached four low huts or
tambos, where we stopped for supper and for
fac might. I went back to the canoes, but the
zancudos were terrible and I got no sleep. Next
day the river continued rising, but last year’s flood-
mark is still 6 feet higher.
April 18.—At 8 p.m. reached San Regis, one
of the most ancient pueblos (villages) on the river.
I slept in the convent, which dates from the old
missionaries. The roof was of very neatly woven
Irapai (a species of Pandanacez).
April 19.—Just before 6 p.m. we reached some
dry ground, where among lofty trees a space had
been cleared sufficient to accommodate a few palm-
leaf shelters. Under one of these I slung up my
8 NOTES -OF Ae BO ES Nist CHAP.
mosquito-net, large enough for a whole family.
Charlie and I stowed ourselves beneath it, having
first spread on the wet ground three layers of palm-
leaf mats, and over these our blankets. The heat
was almost insupportable early in the night, but
afterwards the temperature was agreeable, and the
shelter from dew and gnats was a luxury, and |
enjoyed a fair night’s sleep.’
April 21.—Reached Parinari, a rather populous
pueblo on a low site scarcely raised above the river
at flood. The inhabitants are all Indians except
the Governor, who is a Zambo named Don Domingo
Mayo. We found the people beginning their Easter
feast, the Cura of Nauta being. expected on ste
following day. Both men and women had their
faces painted red or white in lines and dots, while
many were already half intoxicated.
The Governor was not an amiable character.
He was very distrustful, and was especially afraid
that on account of his colour due respect should not
be paid to him as governor, and was also jealous
of his wife and of her daughter (a girl of fourteen).
He was also in constant fear of his life (though, I
believe, resolute to defend it), and not without
reason, for his rule over the Indians was a most
severe one. I could not help admiring the facility
with which he, alone and without assistance, kept
some hundreds of Indians in order. He told
me, however, that he had several times had to
defend his life against them, and not long ago a
number of them came on him with pikes; but the
1 «*Charlie” was an English sailor Spruce had found at Barra do Rio
Negro and had engaged as an assistant. His story and fate are described later
in letters to Mr. Bentham.
xy FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO § 9
mere pointing his gun at them generally sufficed
fo pur them to flizht. Once, however, at San
Regis, they closed upon him and he had. to stab
one of them with a sword and then stamp upon
his body, at which sign of determination the rest
fled.
He told me that the inhabitants of Nauta, San
Regis, Parinari, and Urarinas are Cucama Indians
from La Laguna and Santa Cruz on the Huallaga
river. It is remarkable that the language of the
Cucamas is so like Tupi (or Lingoa Geral of Brazil),
that when I made use of the little I had learnt of
the latter on the Rio Negro, the Cucamas_ under-
stood me perfectly, and I in like manner understood
most of what they said. The nouns are often
absolutely identical, the verbs mostly differing
only by a few letters, and the grammatical con-
struction similar. The only other remnant of the
Tupis I have heard of is the small tribe of Tupi-
nambaras at the back of Villa Nova on the Amazon,
but they seem to have become so mixed with black
and white, that in 1850 I sought in vain for any
pure Indians of the tribe there. These Cucamas
have no record of their origin, as have those of
Yurimaguas.
Left Parinari late on the 22nd, and the next day
passed along a coast rich in palms, such as the
Paxitba and Urucuri (Attalea sp.), and on the
very margin clusters of the elegant Bactris concinna,
its slender stems of some 6 feet high crowned by
pale green regularly and closely pinnate fronds,
beneath which hung on a short stalk dense clusters
of black fruits. Very rarely 1 saw another Attalea
more resembling the Jagua of Venezuela.
10 NOTES -OF A BOd ea Nise CHAP.
April 25.—Stopped to cook our breakfast this
morning on a bit of dry land (inundated only in
the highest floods) where the forest was lofty and
not much obstructed by twiners. One very fine
Pao Mulatto, perhaps not less than too feet high,
had a mass of broad strips of shed bark at the base.
I picked up a piece of this, and while examining
it heard a rattling in the place whence I had taken
it. Stooping down, I saw that I had uncovered
a large rattlesnake, who was raising himself up and
poising his head for a spring at my leg, which was
not more than two feet off. I retreated with all
speed and fetched my gun from the canoe, but on
returning the snake had disappeared.
On the 26th we reached Urarinas, a small pueblo
about the size of San Regis, and already referred to
as having a common origin.
April 28.—About noon to-day we spied a band
of peccaries crossing the river towards our side, and
already beyond the middle. With considerable
difficulty we secured nine of them by the use of
our guns and cutlasses. One of the largest boars,
when wounded, was very fierce and tried to climb
into the canoe, and had he not been speedily
killed might have wounded some of the men seri-
ously with his large keen tusks, of which, as 1s
well known, even the jaguar is afraid. As we did
not reach a place where we could prepare and cook
them till early the following afternoon, the meat
had already become too tainted for salting, but we
had a meal of it, and the remainder was all cooked
and eaten during the succeeding night by my
Indians and the villagers.
We had entered the Huallaga river during the
FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 11
night and the village was La Laguna, so called
from a large lake a little behind it, but not visible
from the village, which is reached by a very narrow
side-channel. There are perhaps a hundred families
in fifty houses built irregularly around a square
open space. There is a very large church dating
from the time of the Jesuits. The walls are of
adobe and the roof is supported on pillars formed
from large trees. The Cura was absent at Moyo-
bamba.
May 4.—This day (about 4 P.M.) we passed some
rather high land about 12 feet above the highest
floods, and the first uninundated land I had seen
on the banks of the Huallaga. It had been very
wet, but after 5 p.m. it cleared up and I enjoyed my
first view of the Andes. The part seen is called
the Serra de Curiayacu, and in form and extent
reminded me much of Duida as seen from the Casi-
quiari, showing a table-like summit with several
outlying peaks on the right. Yurimaguas was
reached the next day at 10 A.M.
We were very kindly received by the priest (Dr.
Don Silverio Mori), and as I had decided to wait
here until I could get Indians from Chasuta to
take us up the pongo, he installed us in the cuartel,
a commodious building of three rooms, but much
infested by rats.
Yurimaguas is a small place (about equal to San
Regis), but is pleasantly situated on ground rising
abruptly but to no great height. It is one of the
most ancient missions in Maynas, and according
to information derived from the priest, it was
founded in 1709 by Spanish Jesuits, who, accom-
panied by a few armed whites, descended the
nD NOTES OF A BOTANIST =a
Amazon as far as Parinari a dittle abere Fen.
Thence they ascended the Yapura river, where
they found a tribe of Indians called Yurimaguas,
and after a time persuaded these to return with
them up the great river and the Huallaga to the
present site, where they have remained. They
were induced to do so the more readily on account
of the constant enmity of a neighbouring more
powerful tribe. At present these Indians all use
the Inca language, and only a few of the older
ones have an imperfect knowledge of their original
language. ~ |
The church here perhaps is the most ancient,
and is certainly the best built of any I have seen
in Maynas. It is built of adobes in a style very
similar to that of churches in Lima, having a very
high-pitched roof. The floor is of tiles.” The
priest’s house seems to be of the same date, and
has been much ornamented within by cornices, etc.,
painted in various colours—the work of the last
priest. Over one of the doors is inscribed in Latin
the verse of Proverbs: “Give me neither poverty
nor riches,”
| During Spruce’s stay here he made a very care-
ful pencil-drawing of the church, with its well-
designed entrance of the simplest native materials.
The figures on each side of the door are those of
St. Peter and St. Paul, executed in coloured earths,
while on the left is the belfry with its ladder—the
campanile of South Europe reduced to its simplest
elements. The figures of an Indian man, woman,
and boy, with the priest going to the church, are
characteristic ; while the background of forest, with
its various forms of trees, completes the picture. I
es ee 6
(‘SSgr ‘61 Avy ‘aonidg -y) “VOVIIVAH{ YAAIY AHL NO ‘svADVWINNA—'! ‘SOIT
0° BANN
es Saamage eigen ange eae
Nr naradiatete
we
cx.xv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 15
am indebted to my friend Mr. Young, a good artist,
for strengthening the shading, defining the outlines,
and putting in the foreground, so as to render the
drawing suitable for reproduction to half the original
size. |
Don Silverio makes an admirable priest for the
Indians, as indeed he would for people of any
colour. Low in stature and not stout, but firmly
knit, with a rather dark but ruddy complexion; a
small well-formed mouth, which even in its most
severe expression speedily relaxes into a benevolent
smile; a sonorous and untiring voice; added to
this an irreproachable conduct very unusual in
South America, and an untiring vigilance over the
moral and physical condition of his parishioners.
Every day, both morning and afternoon, he has in
his house all the boys, both Indians and Mestizos,
whose parents will allow them to be taught, and
takes all possible pains to teach them to read and
write, with such success that nearly all can do
both intelligibly. Their writing-books are mostly
nothing but slips of plantain-leaves, on which when
fresh the ink-strokes are very distinct. He is
much put about to find them reading-books, in
lieu of which old newspapers, letters from his
friends, and, in fact, any scraps of MSS. or print
Memmacde to serve. Ele finds it, however, very
difficult to get them to speak Spanish, as out of
school they speak only Lingua Inca with their
families and playmates. Every evening, except
Sundays, all the young girls present themselves in
the corridor of his house, where they repeat to him
the “‘ Doctrina” at length.
At feast times there is mass every morning, and
16 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
at other times every Wednesday and Saturday
morning. On Saturday evening nearly the whole
population assists at vespers—the Litany to the
Virgin—when the altars are decked with small
vases filled with flowers of Pozuctana pulcherrima
(called Uaita-sissa, z.e. swimming flower), and at the
conclusion the patron saint, mounted on a stage, is
carried in procession round the streets, the Padre
and his people chanting as they march. After
each mass in the morning, and after the Ave Maria
in the evening, the chief officials of the town pre-
sent themselves to the Padre to receive his orders,
and he is fortunately not trammelled by the presence
of any interested white man under the name of
Gubernador, this office being filled by an intelligent
old Indian.*. His rule is strict without being severe,
and I have nowhere seen the Indians so docile.
True, they are a rather sluggish race—poor oars-
men—and many of them have the skin disfigured
by black and red blotches from the leprous disease
called purupurt in Brazil.
Outside the pueblo is the cemetery, surrounded
by an adobe wall, with gates under a porch. It is
usual to bury a man in his old canoe, cut up into
something like a coffin. The houses at Yurima-
guas, as in most other places on the rivers of
Maynas, are built of Cafia brava—a stout reed—
stuck close together in the ground and crossed by
others near the top and bottom. The doors are
made of the same material.
Stages (called barbacoas), on which the inmates
1 The officials of Yurimaguas, in the order of their rank, are Curaca,
Capitan, Alferes, Alcaide, Procurador, Regidor, Alguazil major, and two
Alguaziles minor—in all nine.
xv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 17
sleep, are made of the Tarapoto palm (/vzartea
ventricosa) split and flattened out into slabs. These
beds are raised about 3 feet from the ground. A
mat of one or more layers of Tururi (bark cloth)
is laid on the barbacoa, and the whole is enclosed
in a quadrilateral bag of Tocuyo (a coarse native
cotton cloth), supported on a framework of reeds, to
serve as a mosquito curtain. It effectually keeps out
insects but is very hot. Benches, both inside and
outside the houses, are made in the same way, but the
latter sometimes of an old canoe, the bottom form-
ing the seat and one side the back, like a settle.
The industry of Yurimaguas, besides the salting
of fish, which is done during summer, ts chiefly the
fabrication of painted ollas and cuyas (pots and
calabashes), and numerous old calabash trees scat-
tered about the pueblo form one of its most
picturesque features.
’ The Padre’s house is much better than the rest
—built as in Brazil on a framework of rods filled in
with clay, and painted white, outside and in, with
gypsum. It contains several tables, the tops of
which are single slabs, one 4 feet across. The
rooms are ceiled with Cafia brava, closely laid
across the beams and covered above with a thin
layer of clay.
A peculiar utensil seen here and elsewhere in
Maynas is a large flat shallow dish, of the form of
the tin vessels used by gold-washers ; it is made of
the sapopema of some light-wooded tree, and I
Bave-seen one above 5 feet in diameter. It is
used chiefly for crushing maize with a stone for the
fabrication of chicha (native beer), but is also used
for grinding coffee, etc.
VOL, II €
18 NOTES OF ABO PANTSs CHAP.
The animal food at Yurimaguas, besides pigs
and fowls raised on the spot, is chiefly fish, game
being very scarce. In the summer many large
fish are obtained, but when the river is full only
small ones can be had.
About a quarter of a mile below Yurimaguas a
deep valley enters on the west side called Parana-
pura, which is the route to Balsapuerto and Moyo-
bamba, and thence by Chuchapoyas and Truxillo
to the’ coast. The navigation of the fiver 1s
uncertain and perilous, not on account of rapids,
of which there are hardly any, but because of its
often rising a great height in a few hours (or even
minutes) from the sudden swelling of mountain
streams consequent on heavy rains. When in its
best state the voyage from Yurimaguas to Balsa-
puerto takes six days, but when full the current is
very strong, and when low channels have to be
dug through sandbanks, so that several weeks are
sometimes required.
A little way within the Paranapura there is
a village a little larger than Yurimaguas called
Muniches, which may be reached by a good track
through the forest in four hours. This taek
crosses several elevations and valleys, each of the
latter with a stream running in a sandy or pebbly
bed. Along this track the land has been almost
all formerly cultivated and there are still several
fields of Yucas and Plantains.
About the same distance above. Yurimaguas
there is a very similar but smaller stream called
Chamusi, which affords a route to Tarapoto and
Lamas, occupying usually six days, of which three
are by water. But the Chamusi has the same
xy FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 19
impediments to navigation as the Paranapura, and
the road overland is more elevated and very
rough.
VovAGE UP THE HUALLAGA TO CHASUTA, AND
THENCE TO JUAN GUERRA AND TARAPOTO
On Tuesday, June 12, at 7.30 a.M., we left Yurima-
guas for Chasuta, myself and goods occupying two
ubadas (large dug-out canoes), one with nine, the
etter with eight Indians. [he river. had been
sinking for some time, but for four days much
rain had fallen and the river had risen again.
When we started it was 8 feet below high-water
mark.
Woetme=mext day at 4.30 P.M. we reached the
mouth of the Cainaiuche, up which there is a way to
Tarapoto when the Huallaga is so full as to render
the pongos of Chasuta impassable. As rain seemed
coming on, we remained for the night on a sand-
bank, where it took us near an hour to erect some
twenty tambos (shelters) of palm-leaves, under
which we hung our mosquito-nets, and so many
green tents scattered over the sand had a pretty
appearance, the picture being completed by two
fires blazing in the midst, around which crowded
the Indians until rain compelled them to turn in.
After the rain a very strong and cold south wind
sprang up—more searching than any I have felt
since I left England. A good many waterfowl
begin to appear on the beaches as the receding
waters gradually expose them. Among them we
had numbers of Jabirus and Garcias (cranes and
herons), and one day two majestic Tayuyus (the
20 NODES OFRFAGBOR ANS CHAP.
giant stork /ycterta Americana) were seen, but
were too wary to be shot.
fune 15.—The river now reminds me of the
Upper Rio Negro—similar banks sloping steeply
to the water’s edge, inundated in winter and clad
with black rootlets. In many places the perpen-
dicular cliffs of earth are speedily covered with
rudimentary mosses. The little Oxalis also re-
appears accompanied by patches of a grass and a
small Composite herb. The wind has been very
cool these two days, and in the morning actually
cold.
june 16.—This morning we passed, on the
north bank, a line of cliffs about a quarter Give
mile long, the upper 12 feet betmmge ved seareaa im
scarcely distinguishable horizontal layers, while
the remaining 20 feet were in distinct layers in-
clined about 30° to the horizon. These were also
of red earth, but in two places a few beds of
greyish sandstone occurred. A little below the
entrance to the pongo we came to a large clearing
on the north bank, partially planted with Yucas
and Plantains.
June 17.—Soon after starting this morning we
reached the pongo, where the river is much
narrowed and confined in one channel by steep
hills on each side. The margins were at first
rocky, with large blocks irregularly scattered, soon
changing to low walls of thick rock-strata.
An hour and a half within this channel we came
to streams of hot water, pouring in four or five
slender rivulets from a black cliff perhaps 20 feet
high and 20 or 30 yards from the river’s margin.
Each flowed in a slight hollow marked by vapour
FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 21
that constantly rose from it. The cliff itself was
draped with a curtain of twiners which I had not
time to penetrate. The water was quite clear and
@estitute of taste or smell, but so hot at 20
feet from the source that I could not bear my
finger in it.
- About noon we entered a long narrow channel
between loftier rocks and steeper hills above them,
where the currents and whirlpools gave us some
trouble. At its upper entrance stands a steep
cerro where the rock is only partially clad with
vegetation, and is stained in bare places with
blotches of red or dull purple. It is called Uamar-
uassi or Eagle’s house, from having been once the
habitation of an immense eagle which guarded the
pass, and the purple patches are blood-stains—the |
blood being of those who were so rash as to
attempt the pass in its guardian’s despite. The
scenery throughout this pongo is beautiful, though
the enclosing mountains do not exceed 500 to 800
feet in height. The strata are sometimes almost
vertical, and are then partially naked, the scanty
vegetation being upheld (as I have noticed in other
places) by masses of Bromeliaceous plants.
ime mext mal paso is called “ Arpa,’ because
just above it there is a rock supposed to resemble a
harp. The current round the rocky point was so
strong that the canoes had to be dragged along by
Beout creepers. Afterwards we came to grey
friable rock in very thin layers, and this was
succeeded by a slaty-looking dark rock, and then
the friable grey rock again appeared. These shales
gee all [riassic, and produce salt. Two other
rapids of less importance were passed before dark.
22 NOTES OF A*8Oi7aNiont CHAP.
June 18.—We slept in a chacra (shed) just
below the worst fall, called Yurac-yacu (white
water), because the water here bursts into foam
over rocks strewed in the river at a narrow curve.
An hour farther there is another similar mal paso
(called Curi-yacu), where a stream comes in on the
left bank, said to contain gold. Some way below
Chasuta we passed, on the left bank, a considerable
ravine with still black water called Yanacana-yacu
(Ladder River), from its running over steps in its
upper part as it comes down from Curt-yacu. This
mountain, whenever we came in sight of it, had its
summit wrapped in mists and showers, from which
it is said to be never free. 3
After passing the rapid of Curi-yacu the river
‘gradually opens out wider, but still in many places
runs rapidly over sharp gravel. Mountains appear
on every side—Curi-yacu on the right, the low,
rounded, acute-edged cerros of Chasuta nearly in
front, and the lofty Morillo (yielding only to Curi-
yacu in height) in front and rather to the left. On
our left, directly across the river, are only lower hills.
Alligators, turtles, and piraruci exist in the
Huallaga as far as the rapids of Yurac-yacu. The
small alligator is found all the way up to Huanuco,
as is also the fresh-water dolphin of the Amazon.
Electric eels are frequent in the Huallaga and
Ucayali, and still more in the lakes connected with
these rivers.
June 23.—We reached Chasuta on the evening
of the 18th. It is a considerable village on the
left bank of the Huallaga, at the mouth of a rather
large ravine, and from being situated at the very
foot of abrupt rocky hills, while loftier ones appear
xv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 23
on every side, it is one of the most picturesque
places I have seen. Its population is entirely of
Indians, though many show evident traces of white
blood, and they are among the tallest and hand-
somest | have met with—especially the women.
Even the Governor is an Indian—an old man,
formerly a soldier, in which profession he learnt his
Castilian. The pueblo numbers less than 300
married men, and about 1500 souls. All speak the
Inca language, and very few have a smattering of
Spanish. .
Our Indians from Tarapoto were paid to take us
up as far as Juan Guerra—a small pueblo at the
junction of the Combasa and Mayo rivers above
the pongos of the Huallaga. We found it, how-
ever, impossible to persuade them to _ proceed
beyond Chasuta, the reason given for deserting
us being that the Indians of Chapaja, a pueblo in
the pongo, were awaiting their arrival to fall on
them unawares and kill them, as there had been a
quarrel between them a short time before and
serious wounds had been given on both sides. It
was plain, however, that they also wanted to escape
the labour, as there are three of the worst passes on
the Huallaga a little way above Chasuta, where the
whole cargo has to be carried overland among large
blocks of rock for some hundred yards or more,
and we had found the Tarapotinos much disinclined
to work hard. There being no authority at Chasuta
able to make them fulfil their contract, we had no
alternative but to engage other Indians at Chasuta
for the rest of the voyage. We had already paid a
dollar apiece to our men, and we now had to give a
cutlass to each man of our new crews.
24 NOTES“ OF AgbOrTANTST CHAP.
Most of them were half tipsy, as they had been
preparing rum for the feast of their patron saint on
June 29, and it was with some difficulty we got
them embarked on the afternoon of the roth. The
actual distance from Chasuta to the mouth of the
Mayo river could be passed in three or four hours
were it not for the rapids, which are at about equal
distances apart. The second of these is difficult
to pass all the year round, the first is worst when
the river is rather full, and the last when it is
nearly dry. We found the first the most difficult
of approach and ascent, and the last the easiest, but
in all of them it is difficult and dangerous work for
the Indians who carry the cargo across the rocks.
The empty canoes are dragged up with stout
creepers, and though they fill with water they suffer
no injury.
The falls resemble in some respects the airce
fall of the Uaupes, but with less water and on
a rather smaller scale, while the whirlpools below
are much less dangerous. The scemenm ~ofgiie
falls of the Huallaga is, however, far more pic-
turesque, from the steep and lofty mountains
which rise on each side of the river, and the dense
tapestry of mosses on the moist rocks and inundated
branches at the very edge of the water. There is
much similarity in the shrubs and trees growing
about both, though the species are, IT beliewe
entirely different, and the palm of botanical novelty
must perhaps be given to the Uaupés. The most
striking difference is perhaps the vast abundance of
Neckera adisticha (or an allied species), forming a
dense beard to branches of trees hanging into the
water, as Hydropogon does on the Upper Rio
xv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 25
Negro and Casiquiari, while I only saw in one or
two places scraps of a Selaginella—a genus which
is represented by several beautiful species growing
in great quantity about the falls of the Uaupes.
Night came on immediately after we had passed
the first fall. We slept on a sandbank shaded by
overhanging trees, which did not prevent our
feeling the strong and cool south wind which blew
all night. Our men worked well in the morning,
and by 10 o'clock we had got the cargo carried
safely up above the last fall, and we then set on
to cook our breakfasts with light hearts. Into all
the falls there enters a stream of clear cool water
tumbling down among mossy rocks, in the first and
last fall from the left, and in the second from the
pig@ht. In all these falls stones which have 12
feet or more of water over them in flood are often
coated by a black varnish, as in the cataracts of the
Orinoco, but those higher up the slope, and there-
fore under water for a shorter period, rarely show
this peculiarity.
Above Estero-yacu (the highest fall), the
Huallaga is again broader and stiller, though
running rapidly at points; the mountains recede
from the river-margin, and the vegetation puts on
the same aspect as below the pongo. About an
hour more brought us opposite Chapaja, an Indian
village of a few scattered huts, whence there is a
track leading to Tarapoto, occupying about three
hours with mules. _ Another hour and we had
entered the mouth of the. Mayo, a somewhat
smaller stream than the Huallaga, which it quite
resembled. Here were banks of mud and sand,
sometimes covered with pebbles, as on the Huallaga
26 NOTES OF 42. BOtAaANIsn CHAP.
from Yurimaguas to the pongo, and on banks grow
abundantly the Gynerium, Enkylista, Lythracea,
and other species frequent also on the Marafion
and Huallaga. It was a tedious navigation up the
winding Mayo to the mouth of the Cumbasa.
There were, the Indians said, twelve turns, and we
had expected but two or three, and it was accord-
ingly near sunset when we got to that river. To
our great annoyance we found that it had fallen so
much that there was no possibility of our getting
our laden canoes up to the pueblo of Juan Guerra,
which is nearly a mile within. We slept therefore
at the mouth, and the next morning had the cargoes
carried overland to the village.
[A letter to his friend Teasdale describes the
more personal and social aspects of the voyage up
the Solimoés, and will supplement the purely
geographical and botanical notes in the Journal. |
Lo Mr. John Teasdale
TARAPOTO, July 1855.
I had a long and wearisome voyage from the
Barra to this place, lasting from March 15 to June
21. I was eighteen days in getting up to Nauta—-
a distance of some 1500 miles—in the steamer
Monarca; a wonderful difference this from the
sixty-three days spent in getting from Santarem to
the Barra, a distance scarcely one-fourth so great.
When we were going smartly along by day it was
really delightful, though the coasts are exceedingly
flat—much more so than those of the Amazon below
the Barra. I was, however, never tired of admiring
xv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 27
the ever-varying forest-panorama—the broad beaches
densely clad with Arrow-reeds growing 20 or 30
feet high, behind which extended beds of slender
and graceful willows (Sala fHumboldtiana), their
yellow-green foliage relieved by the occasional
admixture of the broad white leaves of Cecropia
peltata (a tree of the Mulberry tribe), while beyond
rose abruptly the lofty virgin forest, composed of
trees of the most different types growing side by
side. Add to this the noble river, the innumerable
islands (fixed and floating), the cranes and herons,
the never-failing alligators, the fresh-water dolphins
chasing one another and turning “summersets,”
besides numerous other sights and sounds which |
cannot here enumerate—the whole viewed leisurely
and ociosamente (‘‘at one’s ease’’), free from any
tormenting recurrence of mosquitoes, and you will
understand that a voyage up the Amazon in a
steamer has enjoyments peculiar to itself, although
one’s nerves may be occasionally shaken by the
vessel scraping on a snag, or by the sudden assault
of a violent thunderstorm. Oh that these had been
the only troubles! But as we were only about half
the time under way—the other half being spent in
embarking firewood, a cargo of mosquitoes always
coming on board, uninvited, along with the latter
(and | think the higher you ascend the Amazon the
more numerous and voracious they become)—you
may say that we were half the voyage in paradise
and the other half in purgatory.
The MZonarca is a small but strongly-built iron
steamer, with low-pressure engines of 35 horse-
power which occupy so much space as to leave very
little for cargo. The firewood also took up a deal
28 NOTES OF A BOTANIS) == ee
of room, and, besides what could be stowed down
below, had generally to be piled to an inconvenient
height on deck. We used to embark as much as
would last us from thirty to thirty-six hours, and we
consumed on an average seventy sticks an hour, the
sticks being a Portuguese vara (five spans) long and
three or four inches thick. Piles of firewood are
established at convenient distances all along the
banks. The wood which is most largely consumed
is that of the Mulatto tree, so called from its shining
bark, which is sometimes of a leaden-coloured hue,
at others verging on red Jlt™“s one of tesa:
abundant and at the same time handsomest trees all
along the Amazon, growing often to 100 feet high,
and in the spring-time bearing a profusion of white
flowers which may be compared to those of the
hawthorn for size and odour. The tree, however,
belongs toa very different tribe, and is closely allied
to the Cascarilla or Peruvian Bark tree. It was un-
known to botanists until I sent specimens from
Santarem, and Mr. Bentham has called it Exkyfsta
SAruceana. The wood causes a good deal of flame,
and burns nearly as well when green as dry... .
Imagine the cabin passengers of the J/onarca
stretched in their hammocks under an awning in
the poop eagerly listening to one of their number
reading from an old black-letter copy of the fabulous
history of ‘‘Carlos Magno,’ and amongst those
listeners were a Juiz de Direito; a Prociiaeas
Publico, two military Commandants going to take
charge of garrisons at Ega and at the mouth of the
river Ica, and an English botanist whom, at least,
one would have supposed far in advance of such
old-world fooleries. When I reached San Carlos in
sv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO © 29
Venezuela the only books in the Spanish language
existing there were “ 4/ Sefulcro, por Anna Rad-
cliffe,’ and a translation of one of the Duchesse
d’ Abrantes’ novels. They are scarcely more
numerous at Tarapoto, where one of the most
famous books is “ Waverley 6 ahora sesenta dios,
por Sir Gualterio Scott.” In short, so far as I can
judge of South America from having seen only
the most thinly-inhabited portions of it, I can truly
say that Mrs. Radcliffe, Walter Scott, and Alex-
andre Dumas are far more popular there than
@ervantes and Camoens. ‘To the credit of. the
Brazilians, they are far more familiar with the
Lustads than the Spanish Americans are with Doz
Oiicote... ...
Well, we reached Nauta, beyond which the
Brazilian steamers do not proceed. Nauta is an
Indian village established about twenty years ago
just above the mouth of the Ucayali. It is a good
way within the frontier of Peru, but is at present
the seat of the frontier garrison (of twenty-five
men) and also of the government of a department
with provisional limits and a provisional name
(Dept. del Litoral do Loreto), nearly conterminous
with the ancient province of Maynas. Two steamers
were got out here two years ago from the United
States where they had been purchased for two or
three times their value. They were intended to
navigate the Huallaga and Ucayali; but proved
such trashy things—slightly built of pine wood,
and containing large, coarsely-made, high-pressure
engines that were continually shaking the boats
_leaky—that the Peruvians could make nothing of
them, and they are at this moment lying rotting in
30 NOTES OF A BOTANIS®@ CHAP.
the port of Nauta, manned by a crew of rats and
mosquitoes. The state of these steamers was a
great disappointment to me, as I had calculated on
getting up as far as Yurimaguas on the Huallaga in
one of them, and [I had now no alternative but to
continue my voyage in canoes, in the rainy season
and with the river full. I got a couple of canoes,
and after a fortnight’s delay in putting them in
order and getting crews of Indians to navigate
them, I took my weary way up the Marafion....
[Part of a letter to Mr. Bentham carries on the
narrative by describing’ an incident at Nauta that
might have had very serious consequences, or
even caused the death of the traveller. ]
To Mr. George Bentham
YURIMAGUAS, PERU, May 27, 1855.
I left the Barra on March 15 in the steamer, and
reached Nauta on April 2. Had it not been for the
delays in taking in firewood every day or nearly
so, the voyage might have been made in half the
time. At Nauta I was detained a fortnight getting
together Indians and a couple of canoes to continue
my voyage. From Nauta to Yurimaguas took me
till May 5—a voyage made sufficiently uncomfort-
able from abundance of mosquitoes by day and night,
and rendered perilous by frequent falling in of the
banks of Marafion and Huallaga, and by the risk of
upsetting when the deeply-laden canoe struck on
some hidden stump, which happened every day.
My repose in the Barra had been of great
service to my health, but I reached Yurimaguas
xv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO © 31
pretty nearly done up, and on the very day I arrived
I was seized with diarrhcea—caused probably by
drinking the saline waters of the Huallaga. I had
scarcely shaken off this when I was taken with
influenza, which still holds me. To these inoppor-
tune bodily ailments have been added no small
mental trouble. You will perhaps have heard in
England of the number of adventurers of all
nations, but principally English and Americans,
who, misled by a false report of gold on the Upper
Marafion, went thither seeking it. Many of these
had passed the Barra before I arrived there, but I
still met several, and amongst them an English
sailor who seemed a very quiet fellow, and whom I
engaged to accompany me to Peru, thinking that a
stout companion like him would be invaluable to
me in a country where, as report truly said, there
was no law but that of the strongest, and acts of
atrocity were of frequent occurrence. I might, with
a little more forethought, have considered that a
man who had once become imbued with the idea of
acquiring riches by some sudden fortune (for |]
knew he had been a “digger” in Australia) was
never likely to take steadily to any work which
brought him in but small, though certain, gains ;
but I could not tell beforehand what I know now,
that my companion had marked by violence his
course through Peru, and had been in prison at
Lima for murder. When we reached Peru, and
had consequently passed the limit of any efficient
police, his nature began to show itself, and I had
proof that he sought occasion to murder me and
decamp with the money I carried with me. On the
way here from Nauta he ill-treated the Indians, and
39 NOTES OF A BOTANITS@® CHAP.
being rather deaf and understanding scarcely any-
thing of Spanish, he fancied that every one whom
he saw laugh was ridiculing him. A few days after
we got here an old Indian, who officiates as sacristan
to the Padre, was conversing with other Indians in
the square, when my man went up to him, seized
him by the neck, and with his right fist broke his
mouth in. On the following day, when we were at
dinner with the Padre, where was also a Portuguese
who had travelled along with us nearly all the way
from Nauta, the latter was telling some tale about
the students at Coimbra which set us a-laughing ;
my man thought the laugh was directed against him,
got up from table and challenged the Portuguese
to fight him with his fists. Attempts at explanation
only infuriated him more, and seizing a pickaxe he
aimed a blow with it at the Portuguese, which I
happily averted by lifting up the handle. The
Portuguese then, at the Padre’s request, entered an
inner room and fastened himself in, the other still
attempting to burst open the door in order to wreak
his vengeance. It was, of course, quite impossible
for me to excuse or palliate such conduct as this to
the good Padre, who had treated us most kindly, and
as it is equally impossible for me to follow my
pursuits without keeping on good terms with all, my
separation from such a companion became impera-
tive. I do not trouble you with a detail of the
reason I had for concluding that he contemplated
violence towards myself, and which for several days
had induced me to sleep always with a revolver
under my pillow. Suffice to say that with much
trouble and no small sacrifice on my part we
succeeded in getting him sent off. I paid? iaum
xv FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO © 33
three months’ wages and the passage from the
Isatray and baek—zin all 140 milreis—and on the
whole I am some 420 out of pocket by the
speculation.’ ;
Many of the gold-seekers marked their way
through Peru by violence, and some of them came
to violent ends: an Englishman was killed in
Chasuta by the Indians, an American was drowned
in a stream which enters the Huallaga within
sight of Yurimaguas, and many others perished
miserably in one way or another. All were known
to the natives under the generic name of ‘‘ Ingleses,”
who are consequently by no means in good odour.
You will perhaps not be surprised to hear, after
what I have above stated, that I am inclined to
repent having come on this expedition, which is
proper only for a person enjoying the best bodily
health and strength. I have still considerable
expense and risk before me-—to get to Tarapoto
will cost me fifty dollars, though it is so near in a
straight line that I can nearly see it from a little
way down the river. But the delays always annoy
me more than the expense, especially when I can-
not work. The great bulk of my baggage is paper,
which it is of the first necessity to bring, as I
understand I could not procure any from nearer
than Lima, where I have no funds and no corre-
' In a letter written shortly before he quitted Tarapoto, Spruce gives the
termination of this man’s career as follows :—
*“‘Jn my letter from Yurimaguas I spoke of an English sailor who came up
with me from the Barra, and whom I was obliged to dismiss for his violent
conduct. He has lately been cruelly murdered by two Indians who navigated
his canoe a little below the mouth of the Ucayali, much in the same way that
Count D’ Osery was, some distance higher up the river. Though, from his own
confession to me, I have no doubt that the same measure has been meted to
him as he had meted to others, I am not at all satisfied that his murderers have
been set at liberty without punishment.”
WOL, II D
34 NOTES OF A BOTANIST ane
spondents. At Nauta I collected scarcely anything,
for fear of adding to my already unwieldy baggage,
and I could not leave any dried plants there, where
they would be wasted. The same reasons, added
to illness, have limited my gatherings at Yurt-
maguas, for I cannot hope to gather sufficient to
make it worth while sending a collection from here
direct to England. Towards the sources of these
rivers it would be easier to collect in descending
than in ascending were it practicable to remain a
few days in the promising localities ; for in coming
down the size of one’s canoe may be as large as one
chooses, but in going up one must necessarily use
the smallest canoes, and even then be content to
get on at a very slow rate.
[The letter to Mr. Teasdale now takes up the
narrative again :—]
The banks of both Marafion and Huallaga
continue flat all the way to Yurimaguas, but at
about two days below this place / enjoyed my
jirst view of the Andes! \t was on the 2nd of May
—we had had terrible rain from midnight to noon,
and it still kept dropping until 5 p.m. About half-
past five the sky cleared to N.W., distinctly revealing
a line of blue mountains which might be some 4000
feet higher than the river. They are called ihe
Curi-yacu (Mountains of the River of Gold), and
extend along the western side of the pongos of the
Huallaga.
You are, I daresay, aware that the Marafion, the
Huallaga, and their tributaries have the peculiarity
of issuing from the mountains into the plains
through deep narrow rifts called pongos. From
fe FROM MANAOS TO TARAPOTO 35
the steep perpendicular walls which confine these
narrows, the Peruvians say very expressively that
the rivers in such places are doved iu (“‘encajonado’’).
The pongo of the Huallaga commences a little
above Yurimaguas, and it takes two days to ascend
it when the river is pretty low—when it is high the
pongo is impassable. Above the pongo are three
of the worst malos pasos (rapids and falls) in the
mhoele fiver... .
The principal inhabitant of Tarapoto is a
Spaniard (a native of Mallorca) named Don Ignacio
Morey. We had known each other by name some
years, and he had signified to me that if I would
visit Tarapoto he would assist me as far as lay in
his power. From Yurimaguas I had advised him
of my approach, and he was kind enough to send a
Eeaple Of mules to meet me at Juan Guerra.
When you consider the amphibious life I had led
for six years, during a great part of which period
I had not so much as set sight on a horse, and that
for several years before leaving England I had
discontinued equestrian exercises, you will under-
‘stand that I found the transition from a canoe to
a horse rather abrupt. I am, however, too old a
traveller to be taken aback by anything, and I
immediately made choice of one of the two animals
sent me—a large white macho, whose stride was as
long as that of a racehorse, and whose caparisons
were altogether strange to me, especially the large
wooden stirrups, in form of a square pyramid, with
a hole on one side for inserting the foot ; the whole
curiously sculptured. An English horse would
have felt weary with such trappings, but he would
have stared in dismay at the road, though one of
a6 NOTES OF A BOtANTsSs CHAP. XV
the best in the country. At the commencement it
was pretty level, though very muddy in places, and
much obstructed by roots of trees and even by
fallen trunks stretching across the path; while
overhead the branches and twiners hung so low
that I was compelled every now and then to duck
my head to avoid a fate similar to that of Absalom.
They who opened the road had never calculated
that a long fellow like myself would have to
traverse it. Farther on were ups and dowas
strewed with stones and often skirting declivities.
We traversed three considerable streams, tributaries
of the Cumbasa. The track invariably led straight
down to the water without any winding, and the
mules partly slid, partly walked down.
GCRArtER XVI
EXPLORATION OF THE EASTERN ANDES OF PERU:
RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO
Gwe 227-1855, to March 22,1857)
{Durtnc the period comprised in this chapter
Spruce appears to have kept no regular Journal,
and though there are many scattered notes referring
to his various excursions, they are so imperfect, and
sometimes so condensed and enigmatical, that |]
was at first in despair as to how I should find
materials for an account of what was, to himself,
one of the most enjoyable and interesting portions
of his travels, as well as one of the best districts for
a botanical collector which he met with during his
fourteen years’ residence in the equatorial regions of
South America.
Fortunately, his letters to Mr. Bentham and
to his friend Mr. Teasdale were so full as, to some
extent, to supply the place of Journals, while one
of his most interesting botanical excursions was
described in some detail in an article he contributed
to the short-lived periodical the Geographical
Magazine of July 1873. With these materials,
and by making use of some of the descriptive notes
mentioned above, and greatly assisted by a very
37
38 NOTES OF Ay BOdTANiSa CHAP.
rough sketch-map of the district which I found
among his papers, I have, I hope, succeeded in
giving a tolerable idea of this interesting locality,
which forms the most important centre of population
in North-Eastern Peru, and which seems to be still
very littlhe known to European, and certainly to
British scientific travellers. ]
To Mr. John Teasdale (continued)
March 23, 1856.
On reaching Tarapoto about sunset, Don Ignacio
placed his well-furnished table at my disposal, and
he had already secured me an unoccupied house in
a situation exactly corresponding to my wishes.
It is away from any street, in the midst of a garden,
and only a dozen yards from the edge of a declivity
which barely allows the canes and plantains to take
root on it; at its base the turbulent Shillicaio seeks
its course among rude masses of rock, its sparkling
waters appearing only here and there, because
hemmed in by a dense hedge of low trees and
twiners. It much reminds me of the Pyrenean
‘“gaves.” There is no other house nearer than
fifty paces, and this, though conducing to my more
perfect quiet, may be a disadvantage if it should
happen that I have come among ill-disposed folk.
The garden is planted with sugar-cane, yuca-dulce,
cotton, sweet potatoes, frijoles (beans), and calabash
trees. There are also several clumps of herbs (in-
cluding at least three distinct species of Capsicum),
and two or three young trees of Yangua tenctoria.
Across the stream is the pueblo of Cumbasa—
a sort of suburb to Tarapoto, inhabited chiefly by
XVI RES DENCE AT TARAPOTO 39
descendants of two powerful tribes of Indians who
occupied the same site when the first whites came
from Lamas, about seventy years ago, to found Tara-
poto. Looking over the pueblo from my house, |
am reminded by the general aspect of an English
village in some agricultural district, though the
accessories are different. Here and there in the
forest (which is mostly low, though there are a few
lofty relics of the old primeval woods) are verdant
spots whereon pasture various domestic animals:
horses, mules, cows, pigs, turkeys and other fowls.
On their margins, or from amid the forest, peep
out the straw roofs of cottages, often accompanied
by plantain gardens and by orange and other fruit
trees. Beyond the pueblo stretches a plain towards
tre SE. and S., while towards the E. and N.E.
the ground gently rises, to fall again into the deep
valley of the Aguashiyacu. The plain is bounded
by a low ridge of Lamas shales, whereon a red
loam predominates and gives to the ridge the
appellation of Puca-lama. A broad red road is
seen winding over it which leads to the fields and
gardens of Aguashiyacu.
The track leading to Chasuta passes through
the village of Cumbasa in an easterly direction.
After crossing the Aguashiyacu it emerges on a
very wide plain of loose sand, covered chiefly with
coarse grasses and low scattered trees.1 This
pajonal (open campo) is not visible from Tarapoto,
but it extends nearly to Puca-yacu. Immediately
across this stream and a little more than two
1 Among these are Cuvatella americana, a Tecoma with yellow flowers,
a strange-looking Tiliacea, and a prickly Xanthoxylum which gives out an
abominable’ odour of bugs when bruised.
AO NOTES OF AFbOrAnNisea CHAP. XVI
leagues from Tarapoto begin to rise the abrupt
ridges of Guayrapurima (‘‘ where the wind blows’),
which are crossed to reach Chasuta.
More to the north is a rather lower ridge whose
top, bare of trees, gives to it the name of Cerro-
pelado (the bald hill). Over this passes the track
leading to a noted fishing stream called Tiracu,
whose sources are near those of the Aguashiyacu
in the high mountains N.E. of Tarapoto. From
this mountain come more storms than from any
other quarter. A long day of painful ascents
and descents brings fishermen to Tiracu, where
they sometimes remain a week, exposed to almost
daily rain and barely sheltered at night in a rude
rancho of palm-leaves. Some way lower down the
Tiracu are cliffs of white salt. The inhabitants of
Lamas make frequent visits there, and when I
visit the Guayrapurima mountain I never fail to
encounter one or more troops of them.
[The accompanying view of Tarapoto from the
southern entrance shows the straggling suburbs
backed on the north-east by the grand mountain of
Guayrapurima, to which Spruce made many excur-
sions. The conical peak on the left is probably the
same as that shown in another drawing (at p. 94)
as the singular Cerro Pelado when seen from a
different point of view, perhaps from the village of
Morales. |
The sound of the waters of the Shillicaio generally
reaches my ears in a soft murmur, often mingled
with the less musical sounds of a cane-mill on
its Opposite margin; the squeaking of the cane-
crushers; the shouts of the men who goad along
the poor oxen or mules in their painful round;
(‘9Sg1 ‘osonidg “y) ‘vaUuay Nvaf WOYd ONIVAING NO ‘OLOdVAVI—'Z “DIY
Rr ae
Sorte
ie ce hee oy aA .
€. ; eo eae
Re Be ee Ro 2 ee os aes =x Anrenepeee La sea an : es fei
o
It
cuar. xvi RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 43
the grunting of pigs, which chew the crushed
canes as they are thrown out; and very often the
laughter and playful screams of boys and girls
bathing in the stream. But when heavy rain falls
on the hills to the northward, the swollen stream
comes rushing down with a roar which drowns
every other sound, bearing along with it logs and
trunks of trees, and sometimes tearing loose from
its banks a large mass of rock which falls with a
thundering crash. At such times all communica-
tion is suspended between the town and the
village. The poor people who are returning from
their farms on the opposite side, with their load
of plantains or other vegetables, have then to wait
perhaps a couple of hours shivering on the bank
ere they can cross. Their natural apathy prevents
the people from obviating this inconvenience by
throwing a bridge across the narrow stream, which
would be easily done, as the channel is in many
places scarcely ten yards across, and the banks are
so high that the adjacent ground is never inundated
by the highest floods, which always subside a few
hours after the rain ceases. <A bridge was indeed
commenced in 1856, but the foundations were so
ill-laid that the first flood swept them away.
At some seasons, especially during the rains,
scarcely any colour but green, of various shades,
can be discerned in the landscape, save that in the
morning the lower part of the course of the Mayo
and Cumbasa are marked by a line of hovering
mist, and that a tall column of grey smoke may
be seen rising in the forest from some newly-made
clearing ; but a few sunny days after rain variegate
the forest here and there with the flowers of
44 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® 9 see
several trees and twiners, and the colours are
gayest and most varied in the months of July
and August. Then are scattered over the plain,
especially where the soil is sandy, dense posies of
the “ Purple flower,” a species of Physocalymma
(Lythracez), and the less conspicuous ones of the
‘Yellow flower” (Vochysia sp.); more sparingly is
seen mixed with these a larger mass of the orange
flowers of Vochysta ferruginea, and these are every-
where set off by white bunches of Myrtles and
Melastomas. Near the Shillicaio rise here and
there magnificent trees of Ama-sisa ( Evythrina
amasisa, Sp.), which have been spared by the axe
of the first settlers—some of them as much as
80 or 100 feet high, and twice im the year, at
intervals of six months, clad with large flame-
coloured or vermilion flowers, sometimes with no
accompaniment of leaves and sometimes with
young leaves of a most delicate green just
appearing. I have been delighted to walk by the
Shillicaio at sunset and observe the tracery of the
crown of the Ama-sisa, with its copious red tassels,
projected on the pale blue eastern sky, when the
flowers of almost every tree showed a different
shade of yellow-red, not, however, paling to yellow
on the one hand or deepening to scarlet on the
other. It continues in flower nearly two months,
and before it has well done flowering the ripened
follicular pods splitting up on one side only, and
with the two or three seeds still adhering, begin to
strew the ground. The trunk is more or less closely
beset with shortly conical, sharply cusped prickles.’
1 On this account it is constantly selected by the sagacious troopial (Casszcus
¢cteronotus) for its long pensile nests; though, as if doubting that this were
XVI mEStDE NCE AT TAKAPOTO A5
On the declivities sloping to the Shillicaio and
too steep for cultivation there are other trees of the
primeval forest which flower along with the Ama-
sisa, especially the Lupuna (Chorzsta ventricosa), a
Bombaceous tree with prickly trunk swollen above
the base, producing abundance of large rose-
coloured flowers, and a tree of moderate growth
bearing large panicles of rather small white odori-
ferous flowers (allied to Loganiacee or Gentianez).
Some two months later a low spreading Bauhinia,
abundant on the rocky margin of the stream,
appears every morning sprinkled with large white
flowers resembling a Prince’s feather in form.
I know not at what hour they open, but it is
certainly before daylight, as I always see them fully
expanded at earliest dawn. A Capparis which
often grows near it has large white inodorous
flowers which begin to open at sunset, and at
daybreak the stamens and petals are falling away.
It flowers more or less all the year round, and the
Bauhinia does not go out of flower for full eight
months.*
Tarapoto is situated in a large pampa or plain
sufficient to render them inaccessible, it hangs them on the very points of the
outermost twigs. All the species of troopial I have seen on the Amazon and
Rio Negro show similar foresight in selecting a place where to rear their
infant colonies ; and the robber who, observing no impediment from below,
ventures to climb to their eyrie finds to his cost that it is defended by some
large wasps’ nest, or by hordes of stinging ants.
1 [It is interesting to note how often Spruce mentions white flowers as
night-blooming, but these two cases are especially interesting because one
opens in the evening, the other apparently during the night or long before
dawn. This accords with the fact, communicated to me by Mr. K. Jordan of
the Tring Museum, that their moth-collector in South America has found that
besides the species of moths that come to light or to flowers in the evening and
principally up to about midnight, there are other species which only appear
probably an hour or so before dawn till near sunrise. Presumably these latter
moths are those which fertilise these early flowering white- blossomed trees
and shrubs observed by Spruce. —A. R. W.]
46 NOTES: OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
of such dimensions that London might be set down
in it entire, and so completely encircled by moun-
tains as to form a vast natural amphitheatre. It is
about 1500 feet above the sea, while the encircling
ridges are 2000 or 3000 feet above the plain, and
some of the peaks one or two thousand feet more.
The town dates only from some seventy years
back, yet according to a census made since my
arrival it numbers nearly 12,000 souls, including
two small hamlets which form a kind of suburb to
it. The dominion of the Incas does not seem to
have extended much to the eastward of the central
ridge of the Andes, and the Spaniards found this
part of the montafia occupied by independent
Indian tribes, of which considerable remnants still
exist, both pure and mixed. The first town estab-
lished by the conquerors was Lamas, which stands
on the top of a curious conical hill five leagues
(seventeen miles) westward of Tarapoto and 1500feet
above the pampa. From my house I can, with the
telescope, distinctly see the white houses glistening
in the morning sun. I have also visited it, and
may have something to tell you of it in a future
letter. It numbers now only from 6000 to 7000
inhabitants, but Tarapoto and several villages on the
Mayo and Cumbasa rivers are all colonies of Lamas.
Moyobamba, more to the westward, among the
mountains, has about 20,000 inhabitants; it is the
great centre of the manufacture of those beautiful
straw hats sold extensively in Brazil under the
name of ‘“‘Chapeos de Chile,” and of which the
finest sell for an ounce of gold, or even more.
They are made from the same plant as the Panama
hats. All these places are inhabited by the same
fy RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 47
mixed (and I must say very degenerate) race, who
have nothing about them of the European but
a whitish skin; their ideas, modes of life, and
language being still entirely Indian.
Tarapoto is regularly built, and covers a good
deal of ground, as the houses mostly stand in
gardens. ... They are all of a single story with
thick walls of adobes and palm-thatch roofs.
The climate is much drier than that of the
Amazon, but this depends entirely on the peculiar
position of the town, for while heavy rains are
frequent on the hills, they are very rare at Tara-
poto, and we see and hear almost every day violent
thunderstorms skirting the pampa, but only occa-
sionally giving us a slight taste. Fogs, however,
are frequent in the mornings, and no doubt make
up for the deficiency of the rains.
As to temperature, I have once had the pleasure
of seeing the thermometer at Tarapoto down to 61°
at daybreak. ‘The sensation of cold was so great
that had I been in England I should have looked
to see the mist deposited on the trees in the shape
of hoar-frost. More commonly at that time of day
the thermometer marks from 72° to 75°. At two
in the afternoon it gets up to 84° to 87°, and in my
house to 95 to g8°—on one occasion to 100.
On the hills it is much cooler, and even here we
have generally a strong northerly breeze from
10 A.M. to sunset, which tempers the heat. In
the months of November and December, I spent
three weeks on the Cerro de Campana, at three
days’ journey to the west of this, and two days
from Moyobamba. Here I got nearly 4000 feet
higher than the Pampa of Tarapoto, and the cold
48 NOTES OF A BOTAN CHAP.
was sometimes sensible enough, but I could not
take my thermometer in my excursions to the
highest points. . =:
I] have been much interested to” mectieaitere
several tribes of plants which I had not seen since
leaving England. 1 have got, for imstamecsess
Poppy, a Horsetail, a Bramble, a Sanicle (exceed-
ingly like your common wood Sanicle), some shrubs
of the Bilberry tribe with edible fruit similar to
that of the English species, a Buttercup (very like
the minute Ranunculus hederaceus which grows by
Ganthorpe Spring), a Hydrocotyle rather smaller
than the Hydrocotyle vulgaris whose round shining
leaves you must have noticed in boggy parts of
Welburn Moor, a Chaffweed like the minute
Centunculus minimus which grows rarely on Stock-
ton Common, and some others. Ina deep dell on
the way to Moyobamba I was delighted to find a
few specimens of that rare plant the Chickweed:
its seeds had most likely been brought in the dung
of mules which travel that way... .
[The following letter now takes up the narrative
from the point of view of the botanical collector :— }
lo Mr. George Bentham
TARAPOTO, PERU, Deg 25, ato 55
... I did not get away from Yurimaguas till
the 12th of June, and on the 21st reached the end
of my long voyage. Yurimaguas has the most
equable temperature I have anywhere experienced,
the thermometer sometimes not varying more than
8° in twenty-four hours, but I have found no place
so relaxing, and the addition of a severe attack of
me) RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO |. 49
diarrhoea and catarrh had reduced me pretty low
when I left. Periodic returns of this diarrhoea, and
ulcerated feet caused by walking in the cold waters
of mountain streams, are the chief inconveniences |
have experienced at Tarapoto. In other respects
I am more agreeably placed than anywhere pre-
viously in my South American wanderings. Iam
among magnificent scenery and an_ interesting
vegetation, and there are a few pleasant people
with whom to converse. The pampa or plain of
Tarapoto is a sort of amphitheatre entirely sur-
rounded by hills; its position is in the lower angle
of the confluence of the Mayo and Huallaga, and
the town itself is about three leagues (ten miles)
from the latter river. The hills are an offshoot
from the main ridge of the Andes, and from being
watered by the Mayo and its tributaries I must call
them, for want of a better name, the Mayensian
Andes. The ridges rise to some 3000 feet above
the pampa, and some points are probably much
higher.
Good botanising ground is unfortunately rather
distant. The pampa either is or has been wholly
under cultivation, with the exception of the pre-
cipitous banks of the rivulets, and it is a long way
across it to the foot of the hills. The summits of
the hills have most of them never been reached,
and they are clad with the same dense forest as the
Amazon, showing rarely scattered bald grassy
places (called pajonales or pastos). Where there
are no tracks one must ascend by the beds of
the streams, all of which, including the Huallaga,
have the peculiarity of being, as the Peruvians say,
boxed in (‘“encajonado”) between steep walls of
VOL. II E
50 NOTES OF A BOVTANISS CHAP.
rock, where they issue from the hills. These
steep narrows are called pongos, and often include
falls and rapids. They are rich places for ferns,
but it is both difficult and dangerous getting along
them, now and then scrambling over large slippery
rocks which block up the passage, or wading up to
the middle through dark holes with the water
below 70°. An exploration of one of these places
generally costs me a week’s suffering in the feet.
I have at last got into a fern country, and I have
already gathered more species than in all my
Brazilian and Venezuelan travels. Mosses also are
more abundant, and there is a greater proportion of
large species.
Among the flowers I believe you will find a good share of
novelty. I expect I have two new genera of Rubiacez, both
very fine things, one of them allied to Calycophyllum but with
large flowers almost like those of Henriquezia. ‘There are new
things also in several other tribes. The general character of the
vegetation is, as might be expected, intermediate between that of
the valley of the Amazon and of its alpine sources. As evidences
of an approach to cooler regions, and to a flora more European
in its affinities, I may mention having met here, for the first time
in my American travels, a Horsetail, a Poppy, a Bramble, a
Crosswort, and a Ranunculus (a minute species, trailing over moss
by mountain streams, and looking quite like a Hydrocotyle).
The ferns may possibly include some new species, especially
among the jarger ones, which are likely enough to have been
passed over on account of their bulkiness. The fronds of one of
these are 22 feet in length, though it never shows more than a
rudimentary caudex : its affinity seems to be with Cyathea. In
my collection are a good many species of Grammitis, Meniscium,
Davallia, Diplazium, Litobrochia, Aneimia, etc., together with
several pretty Selaginellas and an Adder’s-tongue. A _ small
species of Grammitis growing on trees in the mountains is very
odoriferous when dry, and the Indian women put it in their hair,
calling it Asinima.
These things have not been got together with-
out greater trouble than I had calculated on. [|
expected to find roads on which I could take long
XVI he SIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 51
journeys with mules, but though there are a few
mules there are no roads on which they can be
taken with cargoes. Between Moyobamba and the
Huallaga all cargoes must be carried on Indians’
backs, and indeed throughout the eastern slope of
the Cordillera the roads rarely admit of any
other mode. The number of Indians is constantly
diminishing, and barely suffices for the ordinary
traffic of the district. I have ridden a few times
across the pampa to the hills, but for longer excur-
sions this mode does not suit. The journey
alluded to at the opening of my letter was to visit
a mountain lying beyond the Mayo, at two days
from Moyobamba and three from Tarapoto. It is
called the Campana, from some fancied resemblance
to a bell, and the road crosses it at about 3500
feet’ (by barometer) above the plain of Tarapoto ;
but there is a peak to northward of the pass rising
a thousand feet higher. It differs notably from
the adjacent mountains by being nearly all pasto,
only the valleys and ravines towards its base being
filled with forest, in which abundance of palms are
conspicuous. The only habitation there is a chacra
on the side next Moyobamba, at 1500 feet below
the pass, and with no other dwelling nearer than a
day’s journey. Here I established myself with a
stock of paper, and with provisions for three weeks,
which I had taken the necessary precaution of
carrying with me from Tarapoto. My cargoes
loaded five men on the way thither and six on the
return. I have reason to be satisfied with my
success at the Campana, and I should probably
* Perhaps 5000 feet above the sea, but I have no barometric readings
below the mouth of the Rio Negro.
52 NOTES OF A BO@ANISa CHAP.
have brought away more specimens had not my
host, a few days after my arrival, been severely
bitten by a snake, the cure of whom prevented my
leaving the house for several days.
[An exceedingly interesting account of this
whole excursion, and of the special incident above
referred to, forms part of a lengthy article in
the short-lived and long-extinct periodical, the
Geographical Magazine. I\t is unfortunately almost
the only portion of his Tarapoto journal that he
wrote out in full, and I therefore insert it here
After exploring the most accessible hills and
gorges within a day’s journey of Tarapoto, I
decided to devote a month to a mountain called
La Campana or the Bell, three days’ journey away
to westward. It was just visible from Tarapoto,
and was described to me as abounding in ferns and
flowers, and having on its flanks large pajonales
or natural pastures, embosomed in virgin forest.
As all loads must be carried on men’s backs in
that region, | had first to get together a sufficient
number of cargueros, as they are called, for the
transport of my baggage, which included salt beef
and fish, as I did not calculate on finding much
beside vegetable food on the mountain, and |
intended to give up my whole time to plants, and
not to waste any of it in hunting game for my
dinner, as I had often had to do on the Rio Negro.
I started therefore on the 20th November (1855),
accompanied by my assistant—a young English-
man named Charles Nelson’—and by six Indian
1 [‘* Nelson” is here mentioned for the first time, and I can find nothing
more about him except that he was English, and stayed with Spruce till he
left Tarapoto.—ED. ]
XVI feo DEINCE AT FARAPOTO 53
cargueros. Our first day’s journey, of about 15
miles, brought us to Lamas’'—a town of 6000
inhabitants, near the top of a conical hill, that
reminded me of similarly situated towns and villages
in Valencia, as they are depicted in Cavanilles’
History of that province of Old Spain.
The Hill of Lamas is plainly volcanic, although
there is no evidence of eruptions in the shape of
lava, or any obvious crater, unless certain small
lakes without inlet or outlet a little below the
summit may be considered such. The fertile soil
which covers its flanks, and yields abundant crops
of every esculent that will bear the climate, espe-
cially of the indispensable poroto (a kind of
kidney-bean), consists almost entirely of decom-
posed shales of divers colours—sulphur-yellow,
vermilion, purple, slate-blue, and black. These
shales belong to the Triassic series—near Tarapoto
I found ammonites of immense size in them—and
have apparently been broken up by the protrusion
of a columnar jointed trap-rock, which is here and
there exposed in the shape of a sloping floor,
divided with much regularity into squares, rather
less than a foot on the side, and called by the
natives ladrillos or bricks. The slope of the
floors is always towards the apex of the mountain,
and is inclined to the horizon at from 10° to 30.
Overlying the shales there has been a soft white
sandstone, in thick strata, great part of which has
been decomposed and carried into the hollows, and
even into the plain below, by the torrential rains,
leaving only a few scattered blocks of more tena-
cious material than the rest.
1 Lamas: lat. 6°.5’S.; alt. (convent) 2594 E. ft., (hill-top) 2849 ft.
54 NOTES OF A BOTANIST © cae. xvi
The town occupies a series of terraces, from 200
to 300 feet below the hill-top; but except in what
is called the plaza, where the church,” comment,
and government house—the last appropriated to
the lodging of strangers—occupy three sides of a
square, scarcely anywhere is there the semblance
of a street or square. The nature of the ground
is partly the cause of this, for the Trains ™have
worn narrow zigzag ravines, called zanjas, 4o feet
or more deep, and with perpendicular sides, that
radiate from the convex summit in all directions;
so that two houses only a few paces apart may
be separated by an impassable gulf, and even in
the daytime it is necessary to take heed to one’s
steps, while by night the town is actually impass-
able for a stranger. It should be added that a
bridge, even in the shape of a simple plank, is a
luxury unknown in the land of the Motilones.
The scanty clothing worn for decency’s sake in
that warm region is soon dried up by the sun and
wind after wading through one of the streams,
even up to the neck. The zanjas widen down-
wards, and from their sandy bed distils a deliciously
cool and clear water, which is made to collect here
and there in little wells, covered in with a flat
stone, and. is used by the inhabitante worm an
domestic purposes.
|The drawing here reproduced was made by
Spruce during his two days’ stay here (as stated on
p. 60). It shows the plaza from a slight elevation,
the irregular houses around it, the two-towered
church and convent, with a detached bell-tower at
some distance, as at Yurimaguas; the whole backed
by the forest-clad Tarapoto mountains. This was
(‘SSgr ‘sontidg 2) ‘dUVMISVA-HLYON ONIMOOT ‘SVAVI— ‘Ef “DIT
~~
CRI eee pe ERROR pe AY remy
~ae
‘
Bye ts mre se
Ay ace, Se ee
Many
Uy
<1
”
pea
Pea, RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 57
delicately outlined by Spruce and the shading added
by Mr. Young under my directions.—A. R. W.]
The river Mayo—a broad, shallow stream,
whose sources are in the summits of the Eastern
Cordillera—runs half round the base of the hill of
Lamas, first from north to south, then eastward to
unite with the Huallaga.
The inhabitants of Lamas are a mixed race,
descended partly from Spanish colonists, partly
from the ancient Indian inhabitants, of the tribe
of Motilones or Shaven Crowns; so called by the
first Europeans who visited them from their custom
of cutting off the hair close to the head, with the
exception of a fringe left hanging in front to the
level of the eyebrows. The custom is still common
among the Indians and half-Indians throughout
that region; but nowadays the barber’s tools are
scissors—anciently they were sharp-edged mussel-
shells. In 1541, only a few years after the con-
quest of Peru, Felipe de Utre (or Von Huten) set
out from Coro in Venezuela, in quest of El Dorado
and the Omaguas, and after travelling southwards
ten years, reached the province of the Motilones in
Peru, by way of a large river that flows thence to
the Amazon. That large river we now know to
be the Huallaga. Some years later (in 1560) the
famous expedition headed by Pedro de Ursua, and
numbering many hundred men, reached Lamas,
described as a small village of Motilones, on the
banks of the river Moyobamba, where he delayed
to build vessels for navigating the Amazon. In
his train was the infamous Lope de Aguirre, whose
name—synonymous with “traitor” throughout
that region—is still given to one of the malos
58 NOTES OF A BSOTANIS#. CHAP.
pasos in the rapids of the Huallaga, two days’
journey below Lamas. It was not there, however,
that he assassinated his patron, Ursua, but on the
Amazon itself, at some place not well made out, on
New Year's Day, 1561.
Ursua has not been the only adventurer whose
miscarriage dated from Lamas. When I embarked
at Liverpool, in June 1849, for the mouth of the
Amazon, I was shown by the Messrs. Singlehurst
great piles of a spurious Peruvian Bark, which had
been found to contain no particle of quinine or of
any cognate alkaloid, and was therefore quite un-
saleable. Its history, as I made it out many years
afterwards, was as follows:—A certain Don Luis
, a young Peruvian, of good address and figure,
energetic but restless, and sadly deficient in know-
ledge and prudence, whilst occupied as intendant
of a mine near Cajamarca, had heard reports of the
abundance of bark-trees in the lower part of the
valley of the Huallaga, and having obtained speci-
mens of the leaves and bark, he rashly pronounced
them identical with true Cascarilla, such as he
had seen at Huanuco. Forthwith he persuaded
several other young men—some of them of good
family—to join him in an expedition in quest of it.
They found it in greatest abundance on the hill of
Lamas, where they collected what they considered
would make a shipload of it, embarked it on the
Huallaga in rafts, and thus conveyed it all the way
down the Amazon—some 2000 miles—to the port
of Para. In all the towns on their route their bold
venture created a great sensation. At the city of
Barra (now Mandos), at the mouth of the Rio
Negro, they delayed long enough for Don Luis to
XVI Me oto NCGE Al DARAPOTO 59
win the heart of and actually marry the daughter
of the oldest Portuguese colonist, Senhor Brandao,
who (as he himself has told me) considered him-
self of the same race as our ancient Dukes of
Suffolk. Arrived at Para, the resident merchants
and druggists, deceived by the appearance of the
bark, and probably at that epoch unable to test it
chemically, offered to buy the whole cargo at a
price that would have amply remunerated the
adventurers, who, however, now thoroughly per-
suaded of the genuineness of their bark, and be-
lieving they could obtain a far higher price for it in
England, determined to proceed with it to Liver-
pool. They accordingly freighted a vessel of
Singlehurst’s, partly on borrowed money and
partly on credit of the proceeds of the sale they
hoped to effect. It must have been a sorrowful
moment for them when their bark, having been
analysed at Liverpool by competent judges, was
pronounced to be utterly worthless, and not Peru-
vian Bark at all. When ulterior analysis only
confirmed the sentence, nothing was left for them
but to abandon their hoped-for source of wealth
and return to their own country, which they were
only enabled to do by the beneficence of the mer-
chants of Liverpool. Mr. Singlehurst had the
unsaleable bark left on his hands, in lieu of 4400
due to him on freight from Para, and for expenses
incurred in England.
_ At Lamas I was shown the spurious bark-tree,
still growing in tolerable abundance, and recognised
it as one | had gathered in flower and fruit on hill-
sides at Tarapoto. It is the Condaminea corym-
bosa of Decandolle, and belongs to the same family
60 NOTES OF A BOTANISTS CHAP.
as the Cinchonas, some of which it sufficiently
resembles in both leaves and flowers, but differs
generically in the seeds being wingless; and the
bark, although slightly bitter, has none of the febri-
fugal and antiperiodic properties of the Cinchonas.
There had not been wanting people on the spot who
warned Don Luis of his mistake; but he was too
opinionated to listen to them, and persevered to his
disastrous overthrow. |
My host at Lamas was the venerable vicar,
Padre Antonio Reategui, and he must needs have
me stay all the following day with him; but the
time was not lost to me, for I botanised the whole
hill-top, made a sketch of the curious town, and on
the two evenings of my stay profited by the intelli-
gent conversation of the Padre. It was from him
I got the first trustworthy account of the mountain
I was bent on visiting. A small colony had recently
been established on the flanks of the Campana, con-
sisting of an Indian named Chumbi and his family,
and of his two sisters, their husbands and young
children. To Chumbi the Padre gave me a letter
of recommendation, and assured me I should find
in his hut at least good shelter, and store of plantains
to eat along with my charqui.
Having lingered so long at Lamas, I must
hasten over the remainder of the journey. On the
22nd we reached Tabalosos, a small Indian village
on the opposite side of the deep valley of the Mayo,
and at about the same distance from Lamas as
Tarapoto. At Tabalosos I passed the night in the
house of some relations of Chumbi, my bed being
merely a hide spread on the earthen floor, like those
of the other inmates. The next day’s journey was
XVI RESIDENCE AT ARIA POL © OI
a very long one, and when I returned, with heavier
loads, I found it expedient to divide it intotwo. It
would take several pages to describe the savage,
rocky and wooded gorges, with rugged ascents and
descents; and the torrents that traversed them, and
must be crossed and recrossed, as the cliffs rose
from the water’s edge, first on one side, then on the
other. A turbid saline stream of considerable
volume, called Cachi-yacu (Salt River), had to be
waded through eleven times in the space of half a
mile. When we reached the grassy rounded summit
of the pass of the Campana, at about 5000 feet, the
sun was fast declining, and we had still a long and
devious descent on the other side of the mountain
to Lirio-pampa' (as Chumbi had called his chacra),
which we reached about nightfall. On receiving
the Padre’s missive, Chumbi, with a profound bow,
begged permission to open it, and when he had read
it and applied his lips to the signature, he placed
himself, his house, his wife, and his little ones at
my entire disposal.
Lirio-pampa was a nearly level strip of fertile
land adjacent to a considerable stream (the Alau)
that ran not into the Mayo, but into the Sisa, the
next river entering the Huallaga to southward. It
was all forest, save where Chumbi’s colony had
made their little plantations of plantains and other
esculents, including a plot of thriving sugar-cane, of
which the first crop was expected to be ripe by the
time the mill they were putting up with wooden
machinery should be ready to grind it. At a short
distance a spur of the Campana ran down into the
ELirio-pampa: lat. 62-25’ S., long. 76° 50° W., alt. 3335 E. ft. Campana:
_ alt. (pass) 5144 E, ft., (mountain-top) 6000 ft.
62 NOTES SOF A BOTAN Si CHAP.
valley, partly bare of wood but clad with natural
meadow, where Chumbi had placed a few young
cattle. The dwelling-house, being at a little more
than a thousand metres above the sea, was in a
very pleasant climate. The temperature at sunrise
was usually from 64° to 68°—-once down to 614°—
and the maximum rarely exceeded 81°, though it
once rose to 87°. The weather was fine and dry
during the three weeks of our stay, except one day
of heavy rain with thunder. When we had been
there a few days, incessantly occupied from earliest
dawn till nightfall in collecting and preserving
specimens of the beautiful plants that everywhere
abounded, I began to grow tired of the salt beef
and fish which, with plantains and yucas, were our
only fare; and as Chumbi told me there was plenty
of game in the woods, I sent him out one morning
before daybreak to shoot paujiles (curassows or
wood-turkeys). At 5.30 a.m. Nelson and I had
our coffee, and then set off to herborize. Fortu-
nately I indicated to Chumbi’s wife the direction we
should take, and we had been gone but a little
while when her son came running after us to beg
that we would return instantly, as his father had
been stung by something in the wood and had
reached home in a dying state. We hurried back,
and on arriving at the house found Chumbi sitting
on a log, looking deadly pale, and moaning from
the pain of a snake-bite in the wrist of the right
arm. He told us in a few broken words that he
was creeping silently through the bush to get
within shot of a turkey, when, on pushing gently
aside an overhanging branch, he felt himself seized
by the wrist, and was immediately attacked with so
XVI Reto On NCE at TAR APOTO 63
terrible a pain that he ran off in the direction of his
house as fast as he could. He judged an hour
might have elapsed since he was bitten, and the
hand and arm as far as the elbow were already
dreadfully swollen and livid, while the pulse even
in the left arm was scarcely sensible. We bandaged
the arm above the elbow, and as Mr. Nelson averred
that his mouth was perfectly sound I allowed him
to suck the wound, which was merely two fine
punctures in the wrist on a line with the little
finger; but the time was evidently past for either
suction or bandaging, for Chumbi declared he felt
excruciating pain in every part of his body. I also
made him swallow three wine-glasses of camphorated
rum, and we bathed the arm with the same spirit.
Then we got him on his feet, and, one of us holding
him on each side, we walked him up and down by
the house. After a few turns he declared he could
walk no more, and begged us to let him sit down;
but after sitting a few minutes the pain returned
with redoubled violence, and the pulse, which had
beat a little stronger with the stimulant and the
exercise, again became imperceptible. So we forced
him up again, and made him walk as long as we
could; then wrapped up the wrist in cotton soaked
with spirit, and every now and then gave him a
glass of the same, into which I threw a quantity
of quinine. At short intervals we also gave
him strong coffee, which evidently enlivened him.
Still, with all we could do, and although we con-
trived to keep up the circulation, the swelling
gained on us, and by night the whole arm up to
the shoulder was so much swollen and discoloured
as more to resemble the branch of a tree than
64 NOTES OF A BOTANISa CHAP.
anything human, and the hand was most like a
turtle’s fin.
Whilst this was going on, the relatives of the -
poor man kept up a continual wailing, as though he
had been already dead; and he himself, although
he submitted patiently to our efforts to procure him
relief, had lost all hope of living. He indicated the
spot where he wished to be buried, and gave what
he considered his last directions to his wife about
his children and property. He also sent off a
messenger to his mother and brothers at Tabalosos,
telling them that he was dying, and offering them
his last adieux.
Towards evening, although the pain was still
intense, the beating of the heart had become fuller
and more regular, so that I felt sure the progress
of the poison had been arrested, and I was now
only afraid of mortification supervening in the arm.
I therefore set Chumbi’s wife and daughter to grind
a quantity of rice, and enveloped the hand and
wrist in a thick poultice, and had the rest of the
arm fomented with an infusion of aromatic. herbs at
short intervals throughout the night. When the
poultice was taken off in the morning, it was satur-
ated with blood and putrid matter from the wounds,
which had become much enlarged. The swelling
was sensibly diminished, and the arm had become
covered with pustules containing bloody serum,
which we evacuated by puncturing them. A ready-
made rice-poultice replaced the one taken off, and
we kept up the fomentation and the poulticing
until, at the end of forty-eight hours, the swelling
had entirely subsided. The blood, besides break-
ing out at the skin, had also got mixed with the
XVI re ot DENCE Ih TARAPOTO 65
excretions. Toremedy this, I prepared a decoction
of an aromatic pepper (a species of Artanthe) that
I had seen growing close by, and knew to be a
powerful diuretic, and made him drink largely of it.
In twelve hours the skin and the excretions were
restored to their normal state.
On the second day he could take a little broth,
and on the third he again ate heartily. For a
month afterwards he had occasional acute pains in
the arm and about the region, of the heart, but at
the end of two months he was quite restored, and
avowed that his arm was as strong as it had ever
been.
Chumbi had caught a glimpse of the snake, and
recognised it as the Urrito-machacui or Parrot
snake, so called from being coloured like the com-
mon green parrot, and thus rendered scarcely dis-
tinguishable from the foliage among which it lurks.
It grows to a yard or more long, and its bite is con-
sidered incurable. Several fatal cases had occurred
in the country adjacent to the river Mayo.
It may well be imagined that until Chumbi was
fairly out of danger I felt no small anxiety, and it
was not lessened by gathering from the whispers
of his relatives that they considered me responsible
fer tine accident that had-befallen him. / had sent
him into the forest, and had wzshked that the snake
might bite him. If he had died, my life would have
been in imminent danger. Nelson and I could
probably have defended ourselves against any open
attack of the few inhabitants of Lirio-pampa, but
we could hardly have made head against Chumbi’s
numerous relatives at Tabalosos.
When | reached Lamas on my way back, I was
SOL. 11 F
66 NOTES, OF FX BOTANIS® CHAP.
warmly received by the worthy Padre, who had
heard of what he considered the wonderful cure of
the snake-bite; but when I told him all the circum-
stances, and especially that Chumbi had been bitten
when on my errand, he looked very grave. “If
Chumbi had died,” said he, ‘‘ I should never have
seen you more. “Chumbi’s relatives would have
poisoned you. [in vain preach to them,” he con-
tinued, ‘“‘of what the Bible tells us about the
entrance of sin and death into the world, and
appeal to their reason to note how the body wears
out with age, and how it is constantly exposed to
accidents which may suddenly bring its machinery
to a dead stop; they still in their inmost hearts
believe—as their pagan ancestors believed—that
death is in every case the work of an enemy.”
Chumbi himself was very grateful to me, and
during the remainder of my stay at Tarapoto often
sent me little presents, especially of cakes of
chancaca or uncrystallised sugar, the produce of
his chacra; and he told to all the passers-by the
story of his narrow escape from death by a snake-
bite, through the skill (as he was pleased to say) of
an Englishman.
Venomous snakes become rarer in the Equatorial
Andes when we ascend beyond 3000 feet, and at
about 6000 feet disappear altogether—at least |
never saw or heard of one above that height. The
natives believe the snakes of the sierra to be just
as venomous as those of the plains, and that it is
the cold that renders them bobas (stupid) — of
course a mistaken notion, like most other popular
beliefs. |
The superstition that z¢ 2s unlucky for a woman
XVI he ol (DENCE AT TARAPOTO 67
to kill a snake | have found among the native races
all the way across South America, but nowhere so
strong as in the roots of the Andes. A woman
must never kill a snake when she can get a man or
boy to doit for her. In some places it must not
only be killed but buried. When among the wild
Jibaro and Zaparo Indians in the Forest of Canelos,
I have sometimes had to kill two or three snakes
a day for the women. How is it that the woman
and the serpent are in mysterious relation in the
early traditions of many civilised nations, and in
the actual customs of savage nations even at the
present day?
[It may be as well to continue here Spruce’s
experience of the results of the bites and stings of
venomous insects, especially as they include one
during his residence at Tarapoto which had results
as bad as those of his Indian host above described. |
After snakes, the venomous animals most to be
dreaded are the large hairy spiders, especially the
species of Mygale, of whose bird-hunting propen-
sities Mr. Bates and others have told us. I never
saw acase of their sting, and all I ever heard of
proved fatal except one, and that was of a woman
at San Carlos, who was bitten in the heel and im-
mediately dropped, with a shriek, as if shot. She
lay at the point of death for ten days, but finally
Beeavered. | have been bitten by spiders, but
never seriously. At Tarapoto a smallish green
spider abounded in the bushes, and would some-
times be lurking among my fresh specimens. It
bit furiously when molested, with an effect about
equal to the sting of a bee. At the same place,
cockroaches were a great pest in the houses, and
68 NOTES OFA BOW ANS CHAP.
bored holes in the wall, which looked as if some
one had amused himself by thrusting his finger into
the adobes while still fresh and soft. They had a
great enemy in the large house-spider, which springs
on its prey from concealment, but spins no web. |
had a tame spider for above a year, which used to
come every evening for its supper of cockroaches.
When I lighted my lamp, it would be waiting
behind and upon the open door for the cock-
roach, which—dazzled by the glare—TI had no
difficulty in catching with my forceps. Sometimes,
after an hour or two, it would come back for a
second cockroach. - Once, as I offered it the cock-
roach, I suddenly substituted my finger, which it
seized, but immediately released without wounding,
although this spider can bite severely when irritated.
Next to snakes and spiders come the ants, which
are so numerous, and so ubiquitous, that no one
escapes them. Their stings are of all degrees of
virulence, but rarely prove fatal. Many ants bite
fiercely, but not venomously. I could fill many
pages with my experiences of these pugnacious and
patriotic marauders, and of the nearly-related wasps.
I once sent an Indian up a tall laurel, a hundred
feet high, to gather the flowers. At half-way up
was the first branch, and a large paper wasps’ nest
in-the fork, hidden from view by the ample leaves
of an Arad. As he passed it, the anon yiigeons
swarmed: out, but he gained the top of the tree
without a sting, broke off some flowering branches
and threw them down. Unfortunately, there was
no friendly liana by which he could slide down or
pass to a neighbouring tree, and he must needs
descend the way he ascended. He did so, through
XVI RESIDENCE AT FARAPOTO 69
a perfect cloud of wasps, and got horribly stung.
When we had got away from the foot of the tree,
and had beaten off the wasps that followed him, I
saw that his face and his naked back and shoulders
were covered with knobs from the stings. He
staggered and looked wild, and was evidently in
great pain. I took out my flask, and was about to
pour some spirit into my hand to bathe the stings,
when he said, “If it’s all the same to you, patron,
Ieclvrather have it inside.” I gave him the flask,
and he took a good pull. No doubt he preferred
the remedy that way because he liked the taste of
it. Anyhow, it was the right way, and he went on
through a long hard day without a word or gesture
of disquiet, and when we reached home declared
himself quite well again.
I have been stung by wasps I suppose hundreds
of times—once very badly, having above twenty
memes im my head and face alone. Yet I have
always admired their beauty, ingenuity, and heroic
ferocity ; and I have twice in my life lived on good
terms with them for months together. At San
Carlos I had several little colonies of the large
brown house-wasps, which hung their nests—like
inverted goblet-glasses—from the rafters, and out-
side the house under the eaves. They never once
stung me, not even when they had so multiplied as
to become troublesome, and I poked down and
swept out several of their nests. They seemed to
recognise me as the real owner of the house, where
they existed only on sufferance. But a stranger
who should imprudently linger in the doorway
would be sure to be attacked by them. Stedman,
in his Lafedztion to Surinam, gives an amusing
70 NOTES OF “A BOTANISO CHAP.
account of an impertinent intruder on his dormitory
who was ignominiously tumbled down the ladder by
his house-wasps. They serve to keep down the
pest of large flies and cockroaches, and it is amus-
ing to watch them at work, both as butchers and as
builders.
On the Casiquiari, when we were one day hook-
ing along my piragoa against the rapid current, one
of the hooks caught a branch on which was a large
wasps’ nest. The wasps sallied out in thousands,
and the men threw down their hooks and leaped
into the river. I was at work in the cabin, and had
just time to throw myself flat on my face, when the
fierce little animals came buzzing in, and settled on
me in numbers, but not one of them stung me.
The boat drifted down the stream, and in a few
minutes all the -wasps had left, 16) aviten= the
men clambered on board and pulled across to the
opposite bank. Another day I had got on the top
of the cabin to gather the flowers of a tree over-
head, and the first thing I hooked down was a
wasps’ nest, which I kicked into the river, and then
went on gathering my specimens—battling all the
while with the wasps and getting severely stung—
for I saw the tree was new (it is f/zrtella Cast-
guiarensis, n. sp. hb. 3196), and was determined
not to leave it ungathered.
Scorpions and centipedes are formidable and
repulsive enough to look at—I have seen the latter
11 inches long—but their sting or bite is rarely
fatal. When it is so, the last stage of suffering is
always lockjaw ; and it is the same in death from ant
and wasp stings. I have been a few times stung
by scorpions, but only once badly, in a finger which
See RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 74
was benumbed for a week afterwards. That was
at Guayaquil, where the scorpions are of different
species from those of the Amazon, and more virulent.
It is acommon thing there for a person stung by
a scorpion to have the tongue paralysed for some
hours. This property suggests a new version of
The Taming of the Shrew, much to be commended
to Guayaquilian Petruchios.
The stinging properties of the large hairy tropical
caterpillars are well known. ‘The venom resides in
the long fascicled hairs, and the pain of the sting
is so like that of a nettle—although often far more
acute, and extending far beyond the surface stung
—that it is presumable the hairs are hollow, with
a poison-bag at the base, like the stinging hairs of
nettles. But an hour’s careful examination of the
hairs in the live animal would settle this question,
so that it is useless to theorise about it. I have had
rather too much experience of mere mechanical
stinging by vegetable hairs, which are usually
minute or scabrous bristles, closely set on the
leaves, pods, or other parts of a plant, and so
deciduous that a touch brings them off. The pods
of Mucunas (2.e. Cowitches), the spathes of some
palms, the spathe-like bracts and_ stipules of
Cecropias and some other Artocarps, are beset
with this sort of pubescence, and I have often got
considerably punished in collecting and preparing
tae specimens. In all these the bristles, or at
least their points, remain sticking in the skin, and
it is this that causes the irritation; but after the
sting of a caterpillar nothing is visible in the skin,
beyond the inflamed surface.
Leguminous trees are peculiarly liable to become
72 NOTES OF 2° S0TANIS® CHAP.
infested with stinging caterpillars. Children who
play under the Tamarind trees at Guayaquil often
get badly stung by hairy caterpillars that drop on
them. J had always made light of caterpillars’
stings until one evening at Tarapoto, in gathering
specimens of an Inga tree, I got badly stung on
the right wrist, at the base of the thumb; and
when the pain and irritation at the end of half
an hour went on increasing, I applied solution
of ammonia pretty freely, and it proved so strong
as to produce excoriation. The next morning the
wound (for such it had become) was inflamed and
very painful, but I tied a rag over it and started
for the forest, accompanied by three men. We
were out twelve hours, and had cold rain from the
sierras all day; and when I reached home again
my right hand was swollen to twice its normal size,
and the swelling extended far up the arm. That
was the beginning of a time of the most intense
suffering I ever endured. After three day emo
fever and sleepless nights, uleers broke out all
over the back of the hand and the wrist—they were
thirty-five in all, and I shall carry the scars to my
grave. For five weeks I was condemned to lie
most of the time on a long settle, with my arm
(in a sling) resting on the back, that being the
easiest position I could find. From the first I
applied poultices of rice and linseed, but for all
that the ulceration ran its course. At ese stme
the case looked so bad that mortification seemed
imminent, and I speculated on the possibility of
instructing my rude neighbours how to cut off
my hand, as the only means of saving my life. I
attributed my sufferings almost entirely to the
XVI RE oIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 73
ammonia—or rather to my abuse of it—and to
the subsequent chill from exposure to wet; for
had I not been impatient of the pain of the sting,
I have little doubt it might soon have subsided of
itself.
[A few more passages from the letter to Mr.
Bentham, illustrating the difficulties a collector has
to encounter, are now given. It is probable that
the same condition of things still exists there. |
TARAPOTO, Dec. 1855.
I have been most put about here for materials
of which to make boxes, as such things as boards
are not to be had. ‘The only use the inhabitants
ive tot a board is to make a door, and this is
either cut out of some old canoe or they cut down
a tree in the forest, roughly carve out a door from
it on the spot, and bring it home on their backs.
[@e-ouler purposes, such as benches, shelves,
bedsteads, etc., the never-failing Cafia brava (Gyxe-
viune saccharovdes) is all they require. After trying
in vain to buy boards, I went to two ports on the
Huallaga and in each of them bought an old canoe.
I had then to go again with a carpenter to cut
them up into pieces of convenient size, which had
to be conveyed to Tarapoto on Indians’ backs, and
afterwards laboriously adzed down into something
like boards. All this, with the trouble of looking
up Indians, the making of two boxes and prepar-
ing boards for other two, left me little leisure for
anything else for the space of near a month.
I propose extending my stay at Tarapoto to a
little over the twelvemonth—say to somewhere in
74. NOTES OF UA BOA Nisa CHAP.
August. I shall thus be able to gather a few
things which illness and fatigue obliged me to
leave at the time of my arrival. I have been on
the top of three mountains, and their vegetation
is so nearly identical, that I should hardly find
work at Tarapoto for a second year. . . .
| The next letter from Tarapoto to Mr. Bentham,
dated April 7, 1856, 1s chiefly personal and botanical
gossip relating to his work and future travels.
After describing how a box from England was
damaged and nearly lost by the boat being wrecked
in the rapids of the Huallaga, he adds: ‘‘ The difh-
culty, risk, and expense of getting plants from here
all the way down to the mouth of the Amazon are
so great, that I see my Tarapoto collections are
not likely to repay more than the expense of
collecting.”
The letter concludes with a reference to the
news he had just received of the ravages of yellow
fever at the Barra, and then gives a short bio-
graphical note about a bird-collector, whose name
and specimens must be well known to most English
ornithologists. I therefore give it.]
‘Tam sorry to say that Hauxwell is about per-
dido (lost) as far as natural history is concerned,
which is a pity, as no one has come here who puts
up birds so beautifully as he does. He has got an
Indian squaw and a child, and is turned ‘ merchant.’
I am surprised he writes English (with a small
taste of ‘ Yorkshire’) so well as he docs ims
parents removed from Hull (where he was born)
to Oporto when he was a little boy; thence he
came out to the coast of Brazil as merchant’s clerk,
and anon turned naturalist.”
XVI Meo ONCE Ar TARAPOTO 75
[The next letters to Mr. Bentham are nearly a
year later, and from these I give a few more extracts
of general or botanical interest. |
To Mr. George Bentham
TARAPOTO, PERU, Jarch 10, 1857.
I am still a prisoner here, what with revolutions
on the one hand which render the Sierra very unsafe
to pass, and with the swollen rivers on the other ;
as soon as the latter abate we hope to be off.
... 1 cannot collect more, because excursions
to be profitable would be long and expensive, and
I want to save my money for my Ecuadorean
expedition; so I am ruminating on dried herbs,
and working off arrears in my Journal.
lo Mr. George Lentham
TARAPOTO, PERU, Jlarch 14, 1857.
I believe I told you some time ago of my inten-
tion of proceeding to Guayaquil in company with
two Spaniards (Don Ignacio Morey and Don Victori-
ano Marrieta), who are going thither to purchase
Mats, . .~ We had made our arrangements for
going overland, but the revolution which has be-
come almost general throughout Peru, and which
nobody thinks can be closed in less than six months,
renders the roads impassable. We have therefore
reverted to our original project of proceeding up
Bie Pastasa, ... Ihe advantage of this route is
that one thus avoids the yellow fever of the coast
of Peru and Ecuador, and its disadvantages are the
76 NOTES OF A BOTANISa CHAP.
chance of being killed and eaten by the “Infieles”’
on the Pastasa, or of being prostrated by ague.
I think that on the whole my Maynensian col-
lection may contain as many new genera as that of
the Uaupés, but proportionately fewer new species.
I have been much interested in it, because to many
plants of Amazonian type it unites a good many
characteristic Peruvian. Such are Weinmannia,
the ivy-like Cornidia (three species), an arbor-
escent Boccinia, the curious Proteaceous genus
Embothrium (one or two species), and several
others.
| The “revolution” just mentioned in the letter
to Mr. Bentham is more fully described in the
following letter to Mr. Teasdale written a few days
later. This letter also contains an account of some
of the industries of Tarapoto, and serves to com-
plete the rather meagre narrative (of @spnuees
residence at this-place. ‘There are; howepescs
considerable number of “notes” on various aspects
of the town and its inhabitants, and there is even a
list of headings for chapters, showing that he had
the idea of some day writing a very complete account
of the district which was at that time the most
easterly outlier of civilisation in Northern Peru, and
one of the places least known—as it still seems
to be—to European, or at all events to English
travellers. |
To Mr. John Teasdale
TARAPOTO, PERU, March 16, 1857.
I have been waiting here to proceed to Quito
since November last. Money which I had been
XVI hes DENCE AT TARAPOTO iil
expecting for months from Para did not come till
ive wcnc of the year, and by that time nearly all
Peru was in a state of revolution. The first wave
of insurgency rose in this very province, but was
soon stilled. The Governor (Colonel Ortiz) was
on his way from Tarapoto, where he had been so-
journing a while, to Nauta, his usual place of abode.
He went by way of the river Ucayali, and ere he
could reach Nauta, the garrison of that place had
deserted, and set off for Tarapoto by way of the
Huallaga. From Nauta he pursued them, but
they reached Tarapoto before him and took it
without resistance. They got here by night, made
the Commandant prisoner in his bed, and the small
garrison left here by Colonel Ortiz deserted to the
insurgents. It was festival time at Tarapoto, and
the town was full of people. As day broke they
were preparing to resume the festivities—for the
insurrection had been accomplished so quietly that
few but the actors knew of it—when all at once
the cry arose ‘“ Viene el veclutamtento!” The
horror of that word to a Peruvian may be compre-
fended when I add that “recruiting” in Peru is
something like what the pressgang used to be in
England, only much more barbarous. Somebody
had caught sight of the soldiers’ uniforms and at
once concluded it to be a recruiting party. Im-
mediately all was panic and confusion, and in less
than an hour nearly the whole population was in
full flight. As I sat with my door open, quietly
working at my plants, I could see a continuous
stream across the pampa of people laden with their
household gods, as if emigrating; and the drums,
fiddles, and guitars which had been so noisy the
78 NOTES OF A BOTANIS# CHAP.
three previous days were all silent. Two men ran
by my house to hide in the sugar-canes on the hill-
side, but so terrified were they that they could not
reply a word to my inquiries. I got my breakfast,
and about noon walked into the town to see if |
could make out what had happened. The hot sun
beat down into the streets, in which no living thing
was to be seen save a few lazy dogs and pigs lying
under the projecting eaves, and the houses were
all closed as if some inmate had died. I walked
on and on till I came to the house of Don Ignacio
Morey, who I knew had gone down to the Amazon
some weeks previously; but I found his wife and
trembling children, naturally full of anxiety. From
them, however, I learnt that it was probably no
recruiting force, but a revolutionary one, that had
arrived. I returned to my house, and shortly after-
wards news was brought me that the insurgents
had sacked the Commandant’s house, not leaving
therein so much as a cup, and that they were pre-
paring to sack other houses. I loaded my six-
shooter and my double-barrelled ‘ Nock,” and
prepared to defend my house; but at this junc-
ture a report reached the insurgents that a mes-
senger had arrived from Colonel Ortiz, to warn the
local authorities of what had occurred; and, armed
with bayonets, they proceeded to search the houses
where they supposed he might be hidden, but with-
out finding him. Then, fearing’ on the one hand
the arrival of Colonel Ortiz in their pursuit, and on
the other that news of their uprising should reach
Moyobamba before them, they began to prepare
for departing, and at nightfall started for Moyo-
bamba—five days’ journey away at the least—where
XVI eo DENCE AT EAKAPOTO 79
they calculated their numbers would be swelled by
all who were disaffected towards the Government.
But as soon as they were gone the loyal people of
Tarapoto sent off a courier who passed them on
the road, unseen, that very night, and reached
Moyobamba long before them; so that the sub-
prefect of that city, warned of their approach, placed
an ambush in the way, which poured in a deadly
fire on the insurgents, killing or wounding all the
leaders. The rest fled into the forest, but after
several days’ chase were all captured. Among the
slain was a young lieutenant, Don Domaso Castajion,
who had been my particular friend at Tarapoto—a
man of some talent, but of an ardent, impatient
spirit. I had lent him two numbers of the //us-
trated London News, and when he left Tarapoto
in hot haste, he still found time to make a roll of
them and write on it, ‘‘ Esto es de Don Ricardo”
—the last words he wrote in this world, poor
fellow !
Thus ended this ill-concerted attempt at revolu-
tion. Its originators proposed to place General
Vivanco in the presidency, in the room of the
actual president General Castilla; and they ex-
pected that in all the towns on their route to the
capital they would be joined by numbers who desired
a change of government, so that by the time they
reached Lima their forces would exceed anything
Castilla could bring against them.
After this, there was an uprising throughout the
south of Peru with the same object in view, and at
this moment it has become nearly general in the
country. Those who adhere to Vivanco are so
numerous that it is thought Castilla must ultimately
80 NOTES OF A BOTANIS#® CHAP.
fall, although no one expects the struggle will be
over in less than six months. |No! Castilla proved
too strong for them.| Meantime, an innocent
traveller, who may be supposed to possess any-
thing worth robbing, runs the risk of being accused
as a partisan, either of Vivanco or jore@asella,
according to the colour of the revolutionary band
he falls in with; so that even Peruvians, who have
anything to lose, put off their journeys to an inde-
finite date. I had lately a dispute with the present
Commandant of Tarapoto—a presumptuous, ignorant
young fellow—wherein he propounded the doctrine
“En tiempo de revolucion todos los btenes son
comunes!” | told,him the intent of such revolu-
tions was simply indiscriminate plunder.
On the last day of the carnival (Shrove Tuesday)
we had an uprising of the Indians, and there was a
struggle between them and the soldiery in the
square. Several Indians received bayonet-wounds,
and one died of his wounds the second day.
A few days ago a tiger’ was killed within forty
paces of my house. I was sitting in the doorway
at daybreak, sipping my chocolate, when I heard a
multitude of people running down the valley and
uttering the most infernal cries, among which I at
length distinguished the word “puma” many times
repeated. I seized my pistol and ran to the edge
of the barranco, where I saw the puma coming
straight for my door; but he missed the narrow
track among the canes—the only practicable ascent
—and got to the foot of the barranco, where it rose
in a perpendicular wall 30 feet high. There he was
1 [This term seems to be applied to both the puma and the jaguars—very
distinct animals.—ED. ]
XVI La Sy N Che ea RAPOTO 81
speedily dispatched with bullets and lances. He
made indeed no sign of resistance, and seemed
stupefied by the savage shrieks and cries of his pur-
suers, who must have been near upon a thousand.
Whey then carried him out to a piece of open
ground, skinned, roasted, and ate him. This un-
fortunate tiger had been surprised while quietly
breakfasting on a fat turkey. Tiger-skins—both of
the red puma and the spotted jaguar—may be
bought here for the merest trifle—a knife or a
handkerchief. They serve me for cushions and
mats, and my dog’s bed is usually a tiger’s skin—
stretched across the doorway by night, for I
generally sleep with the door wide open on account
of the heat. The dog amuses himself by gnawing
at them, and in this way has eaten me up three
tigers’ skins.
In a box of plants I am dispatching to Mr.
Bentham I have enclosed a small parcel for you
containing two ‘“monteras,’ which are _ broad-
brimmed cloth hats of many colours, worn by all
the women of Tarapoto in out-of-door work. If
they reach you safely, will you keep one of them for
Mrs. ‘Teasdale and keep the other for my sister
Lizzie. Although they may never be worn, they
will serve as memorials of the usages of a strange
land, and of a friend whom you may never see
again. They will probably seem to you out-
rageously gaudy and harlequin-like, but somehow
they harmonise excellently here with everything
around them. They are worn by the women
chiefly when spinning cotton yarn in the streets
or in the open grounds near the town. The mode
of spinning is this. A little child sits under the
MOL, II G
82 NOTES *OF A BOTANISg CHAP.
projecting roof of the house, or anywhere in the
shade, turning a wheel with one hand; and as he
turns he gaily sings, or now and then munches at
a truncheon of inguire (boiled green plantain) he
holds in his other hand. An upright piece attached
to the frame of the wheel carries one or several
spindles, and from each spindle a woman spins
away in a right line, all she has to do being to draw
out the cotton (which she carries in little rolls in
her girdle) to a uniform thickness. Here and there
forked sticks, 6 or 7 feet long, are stuck up, over
which the lengthening thread is passed, so that
pigs and other animals running about may not get »
entangled in it. The work of spinning begins at
daybreak, and as the morning mist rolls away
hundreds of spinners are to be seen on the pampa
—each crowned with her gay montera—drawing
out their long gossamer lines. As the sun rises
higher, and even the broad montera cannot wholly
shade the spinner’s face from the intense heat of his
rays, the task is laid aside, to be resumed towards
evening, and sometimes, when there is a bright
moon, continued till a late hour.
Cotton-spinning is the principal industry of the
women of Yarapoto. The thread is remarkably
strong, and is woven by the men into a coarse cloth
called ‘“‘tocuyo,” which used formerly to be much
exported to Brazil; but latterly Englishand
American unbleached cottons (called ‘tocuyo
Inglez”) have come hither so “cheap -othag gene
native manufacture has greatly fallen off.
XVI Ee SIOBNCE Ar FARAPOTO 83
A SKETCH OF SPRUCE’S BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS
WHILE RESIDING AT JIT ARAPOTO
(By THE Epiror)
[Among Spruce’s MSS. are a number of loose
sheets (about sixty or seventy) in a stiff paper cover,
inscribed ‘‘ Notes for Description of Tarapoto, in the
Andes of Maynas or Eastern Peru.” ‘These are
grouped under twenty-five headings, including
topography and geology; the inhabitants, their
industries, customs, amusements, etc.; the climate
and natural history of the surrounding country ;
languages, government, etc. etc., evidently showing
that he intended writing a full account of the
interesting and little known district. But the
“Notes” themselves are very fragmentary, and
quite unfitted for any one but a person with full
local knowledge to make any use of. Some are
mere headings of subjects to be treated, others are
very brief memoranda of facts or figures, while
wherever there is any consecutive description this
has been often utilised for some of the letters or
extracts already given.
Besides these loose memoranda, there is the
small ‘“‘ Note-book”’ already referred to, which gives
a list of all his more important botanical excursions,
generally a mere bald statement that such a valley
Or mountain was visited on such a day, week, or
month, with, very rarely, a note added of some
special feature of the excursion. As a supplement
to this, we have a few scattered sheets giving
‘“notes’’ of some of the more interesting excursions ;
but these, too, are quite fragmentary and very often
84 NOTES OF A BOTAN rsa CHAP.
break off in the middle, and appear never to have
been finished.
I have also a rude sketch-map of the plain of
Tarapoto, and of the chief villages, streams, and
mountains around it, drawn from his own compass-
bearings taken from various elevated spots and
mountains, and by a few latitudes and longitudes
from his own astronomical observations. This |
have endeavoured to fill up from the notes and
descriptions so as to include all the chief places
he visited during his explorations. This will, I
hope, enable the reader to follow more easily the
references to places in his letters, and the short
sketch I may be able to give of his botanical
work in this very rich and then almost unknown
district.
Among the notes for his account of Tarapoto
there is a rather full description of the roads, where
there were any, along which he had to pass to and
fro in various directions. This is not only instruc-
tive and interesting in itself, but is essential to a
proper comprehension of the difficulties under which
his collections were made, even in this outlying
portion of the Andes, where the mountains were
very little higher than those in our own country. I[
will therefore give it in full. ]
Tur ROADS COMMUNICATING WITH TARAPOTO
The roads between the towns mostly occupy
ancient Indian tracks, and it is easy to see how
they were originally made out. Some bare grassy
summit which will admit of a view being taken
ahead, and which is nearly in the direction of the
Me RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 85
place to be reached, has been sought to be obtained
by following a ridge separating two streams. The
summit attained, another similar one has been
picked out and reached in a similar manner, often ~
no doubt with much trouble, and after considerable
entanglement in the valleys. Thus the roads here,
like the first-made roads in all parts of the world,
go straight over the tops of hills, instead of winding
around their base. The dense forest makes the
finding of a way among hills infinitely more difficult
when no compass is used, and though it would seem
more feasible to have sought out a passage along
the watercourses, a very little practice shows the
impossibility of this. Besides that the vegetation
is much ranker near water, the course of the streams
—not merely their bed, but the whole of the narrow
valley in which they run—is so obstructed by large
masses of rock and stones as to be all but impass-
able, and completely so when the valley narrows to
a gorge with perpendicular sides which merely
admits the passage of the stream in an alternation
of cascades and deep still pools. To avoid a
pongo—as these gorges are called—one must
climb a mountain-side and then go down again, and
perhaps steep cliffs render descent impossible for a
long distance. Hence it may be seen how, by
seeking out the sharp ridge of a mountain, when not
too steep, we really avoid invincible obstructions,
although we have to ascend and descend great
heights. It is true that a little previous surveying
and a little good engineering would smooth down
most of the difficulties that offer themselves, and |
have no doubt that good winding mule-roads, at a
slight inclination, might be made in any part of the
86 NOTES OF A BOTAN CHAP.
mountains I have yet seen; but here, where not
even spade or pickaxe are used, much less has it
ever been attempted to move a rock by gunpowder,
what can be expected? All that is generally done
is to clear away the forest with axe and cutlass, and
that often imperfectly, stumps of trees being often
left some inches above the ground, while the
branches and twiners overhead are cut away only
to such a height as may be reached by an Indian,
so that a tall horseman has to look out continually
to save his head from entanglement. Rarely is any
attempt made to level the road with a rude hoe, and
the tropical rains are left to smooth or furrow it
according to the locality. In steep hollow ascents
logs are sometimes laid across, against which sand
accumulates with the rains, and thus a sort of stair
is formed. The idea of a cutting along the face of
a declivity, or even thei rudest “bridge Woven: tae
streams, never occurs to any one, ~ No sone ss
charged with the repair of the highways, and it is
only once a year that the inhabitants of the pueblos
clear the portions allotted to them, cutting away the
brush that has accumulated. When a tree has fallen
across the track, those who next pass that way make
a fresh track through the forest around the fallen
mass as best they may, for they rarely carry with
them axes, or have time to spend an hour or two
in clearing the road. Those who follow enlarge the
track with their cutlasses, and thus one is continually
coming on narrow and difficult turns.
The principal road in Maynas is that leading
from ‘Tarapoto to Moyobamba, and thence to
Chachapoyas. As far as Moyobamba it is just
practicable for horsemen, who, however, have to
XVI he oR NCE ALT PARAPOTO 87
pass some dangerous places on foot, but laden
beasts cannot traverse it. From Moyobamba to
Chachapoyas it is said to offer still greater natural
obstacles, but to be kept in better order, so that
mules can be used if carrying a single burden of five
arrobas (160 pounds). Thence to the coast there
is a good broad road on which mules can pass
carrying ten arrobas, divided into two equal
portions one on each side.
From Tarapoto to Tabalosos—two short days’
journey—the road is good enough to allow mules to
Bass) and the latter part of it (from Lamas to
Tabalosos) is especially well kept, which is due to
the Cura of Lamas having often to traverse it, and
as the people hold him in great respect they take
care that he shall find everything as smooth as
possible. All the brush is kept down and no
stumps are left sticking out.
But from the first stream beyond Tabalosos the
road is in adeplorable state, and the natural obstruc-
Mums aie very great. To avoid a ravine on the
Cachi-yacu, a steep ridge (the Andarra) has to be
crossed, in many parts by climbing high natural
steps which are very dangerous on horseback. On
the other side of the Andarra the channel of the
Cachi-yacu has been followed for about an hour,
sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, and
here and there a cliff has to be scaled by the aid of
roots spreading over it. The crossings of the river
are the worst, for the water is always turbid, and
runs rapidly over and amongst slippery rocks, so
that on stepping into the water one rarely sees what
one is going to tread on. The water is always
knee-deep, and sometimes more; indeed, if the
88 NOTES OF “A BOTANIS« CHAP.
stream be swollen it is quite impassable, and
travellers have to wait till it _abates. The whole
number of these crossings is twelve, and after
leaving it a tributary stream of scarcely less size
has to be crossed thrice in ten minutes.
Many attempts have been made to find a way
which shall avoid the gorge of the Cachi-yacu, but
_ hitherto without success. Beyond this there is a
long painful ascent to a spring of clear water called
Potrero, where the traveller begins to emerge on
the grassy plateaux and declivities of the Campana.
In imitation of the tambos or houses of rest and
refreshment placed by the Incas along their great
roads, the modern Peruvians have erected sleeping-
places wherever the pueblos are at too great a
distance to be reached in one day. To these also
they give the name of tambos, but they are as
inferior to the ancient ones as are the modern roads
to the solid structures of the Incas. They consist
of a roof supported on four bare poles, without
walls, but when large and well-made such shelters
answer their purpose tolerably well. Of course
they have no permanent occupants, and the only
thing a traveller can calculate on finding when he
reaches a tambo is fire, which is rarely allowed to
become extinguished, as it is the custom for those
who have last occupied it to leave their fire well
heaped up with rotten logs. A slight channel
is made round the tambo to carry off rain-water,
and the soil taken out serves to heighten the floor-
ing, which, being spread with palm-leaves or with
fern, the traveller extends thereon his mattress or.
his blanket, and wrapped up in his poncho and
another blanket, may calculate on passing the night
XVI RESIDENCE AT TAKAPOTO 89
without suffering from mosquitoes, though a snake
may creep to his side for warmth, or he may be
disturbed by the invasion of a jaguar, especially if
he has allowed his fire to get low. ‘[Tambos are
always placed near good water, and as every
traveller carries his coffee-pot and provisions, he
has it in his power to enjoy one of the greatest of
earthly pleasures—a cup of good coffee after a long
and fatiguing walk or ride. Pans for cooking can
rarely be carried, but meat and plantains can easily
be roasted.
The inhabitants of Tarapoto have often good
broad roads to their farms and cane-mills, especially
when several of these lie in the same direction. A
great obstacle to the use of these, and indeed of all
other roads, is in the swelling of streams and the
improvidence of the people in making no bridges ;
and though the waters generally fall as rapidly as
they have risen, several hours must sometimes be
passed on the banks, at great inconvenience or loss,
awaiting their abatement.
[ Besides this main western route to Moyobamba,
two other roads or mule-tracks lead out of Tarapoto
to the south and east. That to Juan Guerra has
been referred to in Spruce’s letter to Teasdale
describing his journey to Tarapoto. Another goes
nearly due east till, after crossing the rivers Shillicaio
and Aguashiyacu, with their intervening hills and
ridges, it sends a branch south-westwards, and then
again eastward to Chapaja on the Huallaga river,
while the main route continues over a high shoulder
of Mount Guayrapurima to Chasuta, at the lower
entrance of the pongo of that river. Along all
these roads Spruce collected assiduously, but he
90 NOTES OF -& BO aN ism CHAP.
also made numerous expeditions to the mountains
which surround Tarapoto, especially on the north,
east, and west, as well as along the banks, up the
valleys, and through the gorges of the numerous
streams and rivers that issue from them into the
pampa of Tarapoto. If the difficulties along the
beaten tracks were often great, it may be imagined
what they were when he had to penetrate these
almost untrodden mountains and valleys, densely
covered with virgin forest, and for the most part
rarely or never visited by any of the inhabitants of
the surrounding country. Owing to the almost
complete absence of any account of these various
journeys, I can only give a bare enumeration of
them, with a few scattered notes on some of their
features where such exist.
During the first month of his residence (June to
July 1855) we have only the note — “ Collecting
near Tarapoto.” This no doubt means within the
limits of a day’s walk, which would take him over
nearly the whole surface of the pampa. From
various notes and scattered remarks we learn
that although this pampa had been more or less
completely cleared of its original virgin forest, and
cultivated for more than a hundred years, yet strips
and patches of the original vegetation remained
along the steep banks of the numerous rivers and a
few other precipitous or rocky portions, while con-
siderable tracts had reverted to second- growth
woods, mostly of shrubs and low trees, thus furnish-
ing work for the plant-collector at the flowering
seasons of the various kinds of plants. We accord-
ingly find a similar note for the month of Sep-
tember, then in January 1856, again in July and
XVI RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO QI
in September 1856, and in November of the same
year.’
After the first month he began the more difficult
excursions—to the pongo of the Shillicaio, to the
river Aguashiyacu, and to Mount Guayrapurima.
This latter mountain he visited twice afterwards—
in January and in June 1856, staying some days,
or perhaps even weeks, each time. Of the second
of these excursions there are a few notes.
This mountain, whose highest summits lie about
12 to 15 miles due east of Tarapoto, sends out spurs
to the Huallaga, while to the north-west it extends
till it mingles with the more prominent mountains
Herm of the town. It consists of many steep
ridges, which from some aspects give it a serrated
appearance, while from Tarapoto it has a pyramidal
outline with much-broken sides. It is penetrated
by deep and almost impassable ravines and valleys.
The meaning of the name is ‘‘ Where the wind
blows,” and Spruce says that on the high ridges
(over one of which the road to Chasuta passes)
the wind seems to be almost constant, and so
strong as in precipitous parts of the track to be
dangerous. They blow always from the north, and
where Spruce slept, a few hundred feet below the
1 [Among the miscellaneous ‘‘ notes” on the vegetation we find this very
interesting remark: ‘‘ Going out of Tarapoto in different directions, although
the soil may be the same, there is much difference in the vegetation.” This
accounts for the large amount of time he devoted to this pampa, and it is also
instructive as showing that differences of conditions quite imperceptible to us
determine the presence or absence of certain species at certain localities, and
no doubt in some cases their absolute extinction or preservation. Of course
‘the same phenomenon occurs everywhere around us, as every botanist knows,
but they sometimes forget what a striking proof such facts afford of the severity
of the struggle for existence, even under what appear the most normal and
favourable conditions, and the rigidity of the ‘‘ natural selection” that deter-
mines the result.—ED. ]
Q2 NOTES OFs BOTANIST CHAP. XVI
ridge on the eastern side, he heard it blowing all
night. On the top of the narrow ridge of crum-
bling sandstone covered with a dwarf herbaceous
and shrubby vegetation, it is hardly possible to
walk on account of its violence. Spruce here
remarks; ‘The descent on the east side of this
col, towards Chasuta, is very abrupt; the trees
are mostly low; they, like the rocks @am@ereur
ground, are densely clad with Hepatice (especially
Mastigobryum, Lepidozia, and Plagiochila), among
which grew several ferns, especially some inter-
esting arborescent species of small size. In places
where the road has been cut or worn down,
so as to form deep hollows, the walls (red sandy
clay) are clad with mosses and ferns, especially a
pretty little Lindszea and three species of Tricho-
manes,”
Later, in the Journal of his voyage from
Tarapoto to Ecuador, he speaks of this descent
from the ridge of Guayrapurima to a clear stream
called Carand, as being “the richest “bit-oh@emn
ground I had seen in the world”; while, after
another hour’s journey and a steep déscemtaaic
reached the Yacu-catina, which he describes as
‘a most picturesque rivulet with a magnificent ~
fern and forest vegetation.”
His next expedition was to Chapaja, on the
banks of the Huallaga, in October 1855; but of
this there are no notes.
Early in November he took a two days’ expedi-
tion ‘to the head of the Cumbasa river and Mount
Canela-uesha, on the way to the stream Cainarache,
down which canoes pass to Yurimaguas.’”’
In November and December 1855, he took his
(‘oSgi ‘sny Sona “sf )
‘JY Su oy] Uo
oprag wnoy ‘(19aF OOOS—O00f) OLOVAV], AO HIMON SNIVINNOW aHI—'V ‘oy
fares RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 95
first expedition to the Campana Mountain and
Lirio-pampa, already described at some length.
In February 1856, he made an excursion to the
head of the Puca-yacu, on the western slopes of
Mount Guayrapurima.
In March he went to the Upper gorges of the
Shillicaio river.
In May he went to the top of Cerro Pelado, and
to the upper gorges of the Aguashiyacu, Uchulla-
yacu, etc. There are a few notes on Mount Pelado,
which consists of bare sharp ridges running about
eeeeana N.W., the N.E. side being very pre-
cipitous but sloping more gradually towards the
plain of Tarapoto. The rocks are covered with
lichens, a few ferns, some rigid-leaved Liliacez, and
a few dwarf shrubs. From the S.E. the ridges dip
abruptly to deep ravines, which form the sources
of the streams of the pampa, as well as of some
tributaries of the Huallaga. Lower down the
slopes are clad with low forest which is densely
mossy. The summit of all the ridges is a white,
friable, coarse-grained sandstone, in thin layers,
inclined at a very high angle. The Cumbasa rises
to the north of this group of mountains, and many
of the deep ravines above mentioned are some of
its tributaries.
(The accompanying beautiful drawing of the
mountains north of Tarapoto is the only one of
large size which was carefully shaded by Spruce
himself. With the one exception of the immediate
rough bit of foreground, it has been photographed
from the drawing as he left it fifty years ago. The
curiously ridged mountain to the right exactly cor-
responds to his description of it above given; and
96 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. XVI
we can well understand the difficulties of the ascent
of such a mountain through many miles of tropical
forest, among deep ravines and impassable gorges,
along a track used only by Indians crossing the
mountains to a good fishing stream which flows
directly into the Huallaga, as described at p. 40.)
In July 1856, Spruce went for a month to Lamas
and Tabalosos, making the latter place his head-
quarters for the exploration of the eastern slopes
of the Campana Mountains, where, at about 4000
feet elevation, is a natural pasture called Potrelo,
“around which is low forest with many interesting
flowering plants, palms, tree-ferns, ferns, and
mosses.” The position of Tabalosos is picturesque,
being situated in the midst of mountains. On the
opposite side of the Mayo (to the N. and N.E.)
there is a very bold and lofty peak, at no great
distance, whose rocky slope seems to be nearly
perpendicular. Those who go from Yurimaguas
to Moyobamba by way of Balsapuerto have this
peak on their left. The inhabitants are nearly all
Indians, with very few half-breeds. Hardly any
speak Spanish. They grow large quantities of
vegetables, and are much employed as carriers on
the route from Tarapoto to Moyobamba.
(The drawing here given of the rude clock-tower
of Tabalosos shows this remarkable mountain im-
mediately to the left of it, and nearly in the centre
of the picture, while the Indian ringing the two
very small bells gives life and character to the scene.)
From the summit of the Pingulla mountain there
is a splendid view of the whole lower course of the
Mayo, with Lamas, Tarapoto, and all its surrounding
mountains, to Chapaja on the MHuallaga river.
(‘oSg1 Aqnf{ ‘vonidg "y) ‘OAVIN MAAN AHL SSOYOV ONINOOT ‘sOsOTVaVI, WOYA MAIA—'S “OL
x
WAY
‘ , ‘
Overs Nien wataan AS
coor stat Ss Searels BP
WOE. EL
peo RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 99
The ridges and peaks are of white sandstone, as
are those of the Andarra farther up the river.
Both are very bare of vegetation, being burnt
almost every year and overrun with the common
fern Ptevis caudata. The ascent to Potrela up the
rocky valley of the Cuchi-yacu is, however, through
luxuriant forest especially rich in ferns and mosses.
To conclude this sketch of the Tarapoto district
investigated by Spruce, I will give a few passages
translated from his ‘“ Precis d’un Voyage” pub-
lished in the Revue Bryologique for 1886 :—
Sune, mist thing that strikes the eye of the
botanist at Larapoto is the abundance of ferns.
These plants are by preference, as we know, either
Maritime or subalpine. On the hills of Brazil a
tolerably large number of species are found, but in
the interior of the continent and in the great plain
of the Amazon valley, although ferns are not
wanting, yet the species are never numerous and
several of them repeat themselves at every step
evem up to the roots of the Andes.~ One may
twereiore judge oi the riches’ of the Eastern
Woraillera ot Peru in ferns by the fact that there,
within a circle less than fifty miles in diameter,
the author found 250 species of ferns and their
allies, of which many were new, especially among
pie tree-ferns.”
Among the most interesting plants in this
fmeeton, next to the ferns, may be named the
Rubiacee, of which Spruce collected 98 species. A
small number of these were already known through
the researches of Ruiz and Pavon, Poeppig and
Matthews, but the majority were new. The
“ Précis”’ then continues :-—
100 NOTES OPA BOTANIS® CHAP.
“Some @eneta ‘of mosses, absent in the plains,
began to appear in the lower forest zone of the
Andes. For example, those splendid mosses of
the genera Phyllogonium, Rhacophilum, and Hypo-
pterygium, all of which, by their primary leaves
arranged in double rows, and in the latter-named
genera accompanied by stipulated folioles, appeared
at first sight to be Hepatice rather than true mosses.
Among other mosses which are met with in the
Andes of Peru, but which are never found in the
plain, are Helicophyllum, Disticophyllum, Cryphza,
Pterobryum, Entodon, Fabronia, etc. The Tortule,
represented along the banks of the Amazon, but
very rarely, by the single 7. agraria, begin to be
less scarce; also the genus Bryum, of which the
L. coronatum and a barren form of LB. argenteum are
the only species found on the Amazon. :
“With regard to the Hepatice, while the Lejeunez
are almost as abundant as upon the banks of the
Amazon, and still show the same preference for the
living leaves of trees, the Frullanmiee) or the eus-
genus Thyopsiella (which are related to our F.
tameartsct), appear there for the first time. Among
ether genera of the Eastern Andes “which@ane
never seen in the plains may be named Porella,
Herberta, Mytilopsis, Adelanthus, Leioscyphus,
Jungermannia, Scalia, Marchantia, Dendroceros,
and Anthoceros. Lepidozia, which is represented
in the plain by a microscopic species (and that
found only once !), is met with in the mountains of
Tarapoto in the form of large and elegant species.”
On examining Spruce’s descriptive catalogue
of the plants which he collected, and which are
numbered consecutively, | find that there sare
poto
Cerros of Tara
Mountain
High
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SKETCH MAP
TO SHOW
SPRUCE’S EXCURSIONS AT TARAPOTO
Approximate Scale
SEEN eee eee
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Roads_.-shown thus.._...0e<0<
STANFORD'S GEOG! ESTAB?, LONDON.
Co.,Ltd.
London: Macmillan &
ie
XVI Re olDE NCE At TARAPOTO 101
1094 species of flowering plants and ferns, to
which must be added several hundred species
of mosses and Hepatice—his favourite groups—
which here for the first time formed an important
part of the vegetation. It must be remembered
that this by no means affords any near approach
to the whole flora of the Maynensian Andes (as he
termed the district of which Tarapoto formed the
centre), because, both by inclination and necessity,
he limited his collections as much as possible to
species which he had not met with before, and
especially to such as he believed to be unknown to
European botanists. We know from his Journals
that often he could not possibly collect all he saw,
especially among the forest trees, and that he was
accustomed often to leave ungathered many new
species in favour of others which he believed to
constitute new genera. These Tarapoto plants were
the result of about eighteen months’ collecting ; for,
although he resided there a year and three-quarters,
at least three months were lost by illness and in
the preparations for his journey to the Ecuadorean
Andes. ]
CRAP TER avin
IN SMALL CANOES FROM TARAPOTO TO *CANEEOsS
500 MILES ON THE HUALLAGA, MARANON, PASTASA,
AND BOMBONASA RIVERS
(March 23 to. June tA, 1857)
[(Tuis journey up the little-known Pastasa and
Bombonasa rivers in small canoes for a distance
of perhaps 500 miles, following the curves of the
rivers, was a very painful and tedious one, owing to
the whole country being almost depopulated, and
provisions not to be obtained. It occupied nearly
three months, of which Spruce kept a very full
account in his Journal, and as the whole route is
almost unknown to English naturalists, I have
selected all the more interesting portions (about
one-half) for presentation here. It =is¢eimlliszer
details which may be useful to future travellers,
and contains a good deal of curious information as
well as several rather strange occurrences. Some
German botanists who descended the rivers from
Canelos in 1894 found the villages rather better
peopled on account of the increasing rubber-trade,
but otherwise just as Spruce described them. |
102
CHAP. XVII TARAPOTO Ie. CANELOS 103
ABSTRACT OF JOURNAL
(Biv sri DIOR)
Beoustated in the letter to Mr. Bentham of
March 14, Spruce arranged to make the difficult
and costly as well as dangerous journey from
Tarapoto to Banos in Ecuador in the company of
two merchants of the former place, Don Ignacio
Morey and Don Victoriano Marrieta. Each party
had its own canoe with a crew of seven Indians,
and Spruce was accompanied by a youth of twenty
years, named Hermogenes Arrebalo, probably an
Indian, as his servant. I cannot find either in the
lefters or journals any further reference to his
assistant at Tarapoto, the young Englishman,
Charles Nelson, and we are left in darkness as to
where Spruce first met with him or why Nelson
did not accompany him to Ecuador.
On this journey the travellers first went over-
land to Chasuta, occupying two days, and the latter
portion of this route was so full of obstructions
and mud-holes, the weather being continually
wet and stormy, that in order not to lose his
shoes Spruce was obliged to walk barefoot and
arrived at Chasuta both lamed and suffering from
fever.
The canoes in which they descended the river
were entirely open, in order to pass the falls more
safely, and the travellers were therefore exposed to
the rains, which were almost continuous, while the
passage of the cataracts was difficult, and the boats
narrowly escaped being swamped. This incident,
with one of its rather singular results, is well de-
104 NOTES OFA BOLANTSa CHAP.
scribed in his first letter to Mr. Bentham from
Bafios, and is as follows :—]|
I arrived here on the 1st of July, after a voyage
of exactly a hundred days from Tarapoto. Such
ajourney! I can hardly bear to think of it, much
less to write at length of what I saw and suffered.
In a postscript to my last letter written at Yurim-
aguas, I mentioned that my canoe had been nearly
swallowed up in a whirlpool in the pongo of the
Huallaga. ‘That the peril had not been slight you
may have some idea from the following circum-
stance. I had with me a large handsome dog
whom I had reared from a pup. There was not
such another dog in all Maynas, and latterly he
made my house respected by the drunken cholos,
who, instead of pestering me as formerly, took care
to give us a wide offing. In one of my last walks
about Tarapoto, he pulled me down a fine deer.
When my canoe was caught in the whirlpool, the
horrid roar of the waters, which drowned our
voices, and the waves, which splashed over us,
so frightened the dog that he went mad! From
that hour he would drink no water, and after the
first day would take no food. Six days I kept him
by my side, at great personal risk, hoping to cure
him. When we went on shore in the villages he
ran straight off, uttering the most unearthly sounds,
and putting to flight dogs, pigs, and cows, some-
times biting them severely. At length he began
to snap at the people in the canoe, and being worn
almost to a skeleton, I saw all hope of saving him
was vain, and was obliged to shoot him.
Respecting the voyage, I may say in brief that
from the first day to the last my progress has been
= TARAPOTO TO CANELOS 105
impeded by swollen rivers and steeping rains.
... Join to this a monotonous river whose flat
shores rarely rose 2 feet above water, almost desti-
tute of settled inhabitants (we once passed fifteen
days without meeting a soul), and you will have
some idea how heart-sickening such a journey must
have been. From embarking on the Huallaga till
entering the mouth of the Bombonasa (which is
now the frontier of Ecuador), we had the usual
accompaniment of mosquitoes by day and zan-
cudos by night.
[A few details of this portion of the voyage will
now be given from the Journals and letters. At
La Laguna, near the mouth of the Marajiion, the
travellers stayed three days in order to get fresh
men and make toldos (thatched cabins) in the stern
of the canoes. They also had to collect provisions
for the voyage up the Pastasa to Andoas at the
mouth of the Bombonasa river, the greater part of
the shores of those rivers being without inhabitants.
At La Laguna Spruce witnessed a curious example
of voluntary flagellation which he thus describes :—]
The Indians of La Laguna have a custom of scourging them-
selves in the Holy Week. We were setting out a fortnight before
Easter, so that there would be no opportunity of performing this
at the proper time, our Indians therefore determined on under-
going their “penitencia” on the Saturday evening. For this
purpose whips of a most barbarous description had been prepared
—cylinders of pitch six inches long were stuck full of bits of
broken glass, projecting about half an inch. About four in the
afternoon the penitents began to promenade the streets, giving
themselves smart blows on the naked shoulders with thongs of
thick skin of cow-fish, that the blood might flow more freely on
application of scarifiers, which was done by themselves in like
manner when all assembled in a large house. At the Oracion
they sallied forth to the church, walking by twos—their backs
one mass of gore and their white trousers (their only garment)
soaked and dripping with blood. I have never seen a more
106 NOTES OF A BOTAN CHAP.
horrible sight. They unceasingly applied the cow-skin straps,
making the blood spurt in all directions and sprinkling my
clothes, though I took care to keep at a respectful distance. In
the church a little below the altar was extended a mat, and on
the mat a crucifix laid on a cushion, with a cup by its side
to receive contributions of penitents. As the latter advanced in
their turn they knelt down and kissed the crucifix, beating them-
selves with redoubled energy. At the same moment their wives
or mothers, who walked by their side, dropped each an egg into
the cup. Whilst this was doing, the Sacristan chanted a
Miserere. Each Indian, after kissing the crucifix, walked out
of the church, in the order he entered, nor ‘suspemdeawgrne
flagellation until reaching his own house. The value of an act
of penitence like this may be estimated by the fact that every one
of the penitents was intoxicated. They believed, however, that
it would ensure their safe return from the perilous voyage, or, at
any rate, should they be killed by the Infidels, their souls would
be immediately received into glory. Many white men would
have kept their beds for a month after such a punishment, but
our penitents sat down to their oars before noon on Monday (the
next day but one) without showing any inconvenience from their
wounds. ‘They have an idea that the beating after the application
of the scarifiers drives out the coagulated blood from the wounds
and prevents any formation of pus.
[On April 6 they left La Laguna, and on the
7th entered the Marajion, and though the distance
up that river to the mouth of the Pastasa is only
about 25 miles, they did not reach “the “atter
till the 11th. On the afternoon of the Venere,
came upon a small village of six huts, where the
remnant of the pueblo of Santander on the Pastasa
had established themselves. Here they learnt that
five men of San Antonio (a village just above
the mouth of the Pastasa) went into the forest to
cut palm-leaves, and never returned, but remnants
of their clothes had been found, showing that they
had been murdered by the savage Huambisas.
On the morning of the oth the travellers came
to the deserted pueblo of Shiruri, half a day below
the mouth of the Pastasa. There were about a
XVII iawOTO TO.eANELOS 107
dozen cane houses standing on level ground scarce
a foot above the highest floods. Spruce thus
describes what he found :—]
The exodus appears to have been very hasty, for pans and
tinajos of all sizes are left scattered about, and even several
arrobas of rice in pots and baskets. The neat beds made of
stems of bamboo opened out into sheets and laid side by
side are mostly in their places, but the termites are everywhere
and will speedily complete the destruction of everything vegetable.
The ground is fertile, and the colonists had made their plantations
of plantain, sugar-cane, yucas, etc., not omitting several sorts of the
necessary Capsicum and the flowers used by women for adorning
their hair (cockscombs, African marigolds, etc.), nor the verbena
which is a panacea for every disease. A few Crescentias had
been planted and in another year would have begun to yield
cuyas. What a picture of disappointed hopes is suggested by
the view of such desolation! With what lamentation must the
poor women have deserted the spot where they had just com-
pleted preparations for rearing their young families, and had
calculated on growing old amidst plenty and tranquillity !
[Thenceforward when sleeping on shore Spruce
and his companions took turns to keep watch
during the night, allowing the Indians to sleep.
The latter, however, usually stuck their lances and
bows and arrows at the head of their mosquito
eps, sO as to be)ready in case of an attack. The
Journal continues :—]
Just above the point where we got into the
main channel were three houses in the midst of
large platanales on the left bank, probably remains
of the new pueblo of Santander, though our Indians
refused to tellus. It is impossible to get from them
any information about places and distances, as they
are afraid we should want to goashore at the deserted
pueblos, where the Infieles might be in ambush to
fallon them. Even where we have cut plantains
in deserted chacras (which are frequent along the
shores, though generally hidden by a strip of
108 NOTES OF A BOTANSa# CHAD.
forest and not reaching the river margin as on the
Marafion), it has been necessary to go ashore
ourselves first with our firearms.
A little before sunset we reached the upper point
of an island, clad with a willow-like Composite, and
rapidly becoming covered with water. Here we
made fast, intending to pass the night, but shortly
the Indians took alarm at seeing how easily an
enemy could approach our encampment concealed
by bushes which, although growing pretty close,
admitted an easy passage; so we moved off to the
middle of the river, here very broad and shallow,
with several prostrate dead trees sticking out which
the rising waters had not yet liberated, though they
were beginning to move them. I was not sorry for
the change, for zancudos were very numerous and
fierce on the island, though not entirely wanting
on the river. The nocturnal zancudo is a small
slender gnat with spotted wings—rest of body a
uniform black. It is called birotillo (the little dart)
because its puncture is so cruel, often leaving pain
and swelling. When the days are dull we have
them in the canoes at all hours, and the small
mosquitoes are as abundant as on the Marafion.
My skin has been ina very sensitive state since
the journey from Tarapoto to Chasuta, and some
of the mosquito wounds are beginning to ulcerate.
In the woods I have made acquaintance with a
minute and very active tick, which sucks a little
here and there, and does not, like the other species,
hang on to one’ place till it gets full; "ise bmes
cause an intolerable itching, and if one scratches,
ulcers ensue.
April 12 —WDon Victoriano’s dog, which had
XVII ie te Orono xAN ELLOS 109
been ill for several days, was now unable to stand,
and excessively bloated.
We took it on shore ise we made our break-
fast this morning, and, as it was evidently in a
dying state, before we re-embarked its master put
an end to its sufferings by a couple of pistol-shots.
Thus our two handsome dogs, on whose services as
sentinels we had so much calculated, had been left
as food for beasts and birds of prey—my poor
“Sultan” in the forests of the Huallaga, and Don
Victoriano’s ‘“‘ Muchacho” in those of the Pastasa!
At sunset we reached the ancient pueblo of
Santander on the left shore. Standing on a steep
bank of red earth, it reminds me, by its position,
St battatoa on the river Negro. I invited our
Indians to go there to sleep, but they shook their
heads and could not even be induced to take that
side of the river. There are still two large houses
standing—possibly church and convent.
[During the next fortnight the journey was
wearisome and monotonous, with almost continuous
rains, rarely any dry land to sleep on, and not a
single village or settlement of any kind. The only
break to the monotony of the succeeding days was
an occasional success in procuring game, such as
curassows or wild ducks, once an armadillo, and
once by great good fortune a tapir. Only once they
met a solitary canoe with a young Indian man and
woman who said they came from Andoas. On
reaching that place they learnt that the man was
the son of the chief, and that he was running away
with the girl to somewhere on the Marajion.
Mn the evening of the 25th, to their great
delight, they saw a fire on shore, and found a small
PO NOTES OF A BOTAN CHAP.
farm where three men and two women were cutting
palm-leaves and preparing the fibre to make
hammocks for the Governor of Andoas. The
Journal now continues :— |
April 26 (Sunday). — Starting at four this morn-
ing, about seven we reached a playa where we found
three families of inhabitants of Pinches encamped.
We bought of them part of a very large tapir they
had killed the previous night, and some pieces of
baked agouti in very fine condition. Here we
breakfasted, and then proceeded; but our men were
completely at a loss in the broad shallow river, and
were continually running us aground, so that we
did not reach the village till 34 p.m. Pinches
Nuevo stands on the left bank on a barranco 20 feet
above high-water mark. It is reached by rude
steps cut in the cliff, which is of tenacious red earth,
without the least mixture of stones or gravel.
There are but some ten houses, including church
and cabildo (guests’ house), all of Cafia brava, or of
strips of palm-stems, roofed with palm-thatch. Very
few inhabitants were present, and we had some
difficulty in procuring five heads of plantains and a
basket of yucas, especially as their chacras are new
and they still bring the greater part eiemen,
plantains from the site of the old pueblo] fie
inhabitants are ill-looking, and some are affected
with caracha (leprosy). They are the remnant of a
nation of Pinches Indians, and still speak a peculiar
language, though all understand the Quichua.
April 27,—Navigation now gets more difficult,
hardly anywhere is there sufficient water to float our
canoes. Beaches appear in different places from
last year, and our guides can hardly pick their way.
XVII TAIRA) iO: (vey eh Ors) iat i
Several times the men have had to leap into the
water and drag the canoes by hand a good distance
over the shallow bed before finding again sufficient
mearer to float us... .
early on April 290 they reached the much-
desired Andoas, situated on the left bank of the
Pastasa, where they had to engage fresh crews to
take them up the Bombonasa river to Canelos.
The village stands on a low ridge, on each side of
which is a little stream, the mouths of which are
about a quarter of a mile apart. The soil is loamy
and very fertile. Spruce was only able to take one
short walk in the forest during his five days’ stay
here, and noted that while the trees seemed mostly
familiar to him, the shrubby and herbaceous plants
were nearly all new. ‘The following rather char-
acteristic incident is noted in the Journal :—|]
At Andoas it was necessary that some one
Should sleep in the canoes, to take care of their
cargoes, and ] and Don Ignacio, as being most
interested, undertook to do it, although we must
thus deny ourselves the pleasure of sleeping under
a roof, which the rest of our party took advantage
of. Our salt fish was stowed in the fore-part of the
canoe and covered over with palm-leaves, on which
were laid logs of wood, so that the fish could not
easily be got at by the dogs who visited the canoes
every night in a troop. Nevertheless, they found
out some part not so well secured as the rest where
they one night introduced their muzzles and gnawed
at the fish, and on the following night I lay awake
until I heard them at work, and then seized my gun
and rushed out of the cabin; but they made off too
quickly for me and disappeared over the top of the
I12 NOTES OF A BOTANIS# CHAP.
steeply-sloping bank. One dog, however, turned
round when he reached the top and barked at me.
I fired (with shot) at his legs, intending only to
wound him, but his shattered legs failing him, he
rolled howling down the bank into the river and
was drowned. His body was retained in an eddy a
little lower down, and there it was found by the
women when they went to fetch water at daybreak.
The Governor had told me to shoot those pilfering
dogs, for they were vagabonds who had no owners ;
but this one chanced to belong to an old woman,
who made an outcry about it, and the Governor told
me that if I did not succeed in pacifying her we
might have some difficulty in getting our com-
plement of mariners, so I sent for her and asked her
how much she wanted for her dog. She said ten
needles! I was glad to give her an entire packet
of the best I had, with which she went away content,
having therewith enough to buy three dogs such as
the one she had lost.
Andoas differs from Pinches only in size, as it
contains some twenty houses and about sixty
married couples, but the aspect is equally miserable.
The walls of the houses are of wild cane or palm,
while the church is of bamboo stems opened out
into boards, and in a very dilapidated state. The
church divides the town into two nearly equal
portions or partidos, that to the south or down
the river being inhabited by Indians of the Andoas
nation, and that to the north by Indians of the
Shimigéi tribe. ... In external appéarameer the
two tribes inhabiting the village of Andoas show no
difference. The men are of lowish stature, not
robust, mouth wide, but lips not disproportionately
XVII fai owo moO CANE LOS 13
thick, nose straight or slightly Roman, forehead
lowish, rather receding, and with the bump of
locality universally strikingly developed. Their
hair is cut off straight just over the eyes, and
allowed to hang down long behind, usually reach-
tm@eetie middle of the back. They streak their
faces daily with anatto, and sometimes pour the
juice of jagua over their bodies, but this is not done
(as by the inhabitants of Tarapoto) to hide spotted
skins, as they are quite free from caracha.
The characteristic dress is a sort of poncho called
a cueshma, which is a long narrow rectangular piece
of cloth (coarse cotton, the manufacture of Anito or
Tarapoto) with a slit in the middle through which
the head is passed; as it is narrow it covers the
body before and behind to below the knees, but not
apie sides, so that the arms are free. The legs
are encased in'breeches of the same material, tight,
bie met fastemed at the knees. .. . A few of them
who have been down to the Amazon wear shirt and
trousers. The women are none of them pretty,
though there are some countenances not unpleasing.
They cut their hair like the men, and as the latter
are of slender make the two sexes can scarcely be
distinguished at a distance. Generally a pollena
constituted the article of dress of the women, the
body from the waist upwards being naked, but they
hang a profusion of beads (white, red, and blue)
round their necks, and sometimes use armlets of
Pe same. .). .
The forests on the opposite side of the river
abound in animals, and those who go in search of
the tapir rarely fail in killing one. Don Ignacio
and I paid two men—to one three yards of English
VOL. II I
114 NOTES OF A BOTa Nisa CHAP.
calico, to the other a Rondin—to seek us each a
tapir. They brought us two fine animals with quite
as much flesh on them as a Tarapoto cow, and we
had charqui (dried meat) made of them for the
voyage. The weapon used in chasing tapir is a
lance with large well-tempered iron head, brought
from Quito or Riobamba. The ‘dogs Wimgedi im
tracking the animal are a small breed with little
triangular heads and curled bushy tails—colour
usually iron-grey or fawn colour. One of our
hunters went alone with his dogs; the other took
two companions. . . . Like most Indians who have
been brought to “ Christianity,” they have no manu-
factures of any kind. Their canoes, hammocks,
blowing-canes, matiris, etc., are all bought from the
‘Sslnitreles
The present Governor of Andoas is Don Benito
Sumaita, a native of Moyobamba, who treated us as
kindly as his means would allow, and aided us much
in procuring men and food for the voyage. He is
subject to the recently-created and probably not
very permanent Prefectura del Alto” Maranon.
The head-quarters of the Prefect are at Jeberos or
Xeberos, on the Aipena river which enters the
Huallaga near its mouth, which, though much
larger than Andoas, is quite as miserable a place.
Don Benito has been two years in this banishment
alone amongst the Indians save his son, a little boy
of ten years; and he told us he slept more securely
the few nights we were there than he had ever done
before in Andoas, for he knew not on what night
the Infieles might break into the village and murder
him in his bed. He was almost in despair, poor
fellow, for he has no salary from the Government,
XVII PAR ArPOTO TO CANELOS Idi
and has not even received pay for cargoes of wax
and other products of the country which he had
taken or remitted to his superiors in Jeberos at
their request.
May 5 ( Tuesday).—This day at noon we got off
from Andoas, Our crews were eight men to each
canoe. Eighteen bunches of plantains were
embarked in each, for we calculated on fourteen
days to Sara-yacu (about too miles farther up the
Bombonasa), and the existence of plantains on the
route was uncertain. Besides plantains, we took a
great store of yucas, sweet potatoes, and pine-
apples; and the Indians so filled the canoe with
their pots of masuto (fermented yucas), beds, etc.,
that they had not room to work... .
May 6 (Wednesday).— .. . This morning at three
we got off and shortly afterwards entered the mouth
of the Bombonasa, which was about 60 yards wide,
winding, muddy because nearly full, with vegeta-
tion exactly the same as on the Pastasa, where the
shore was flat—grasses (Panicum amplex, etc.,
Gynerium, and other genera and species with
Cecropias, Ingas, etc.). On the steep loamy banks
there were ferns, especially a Mertensia, and the
forest trees of Pastasa, with /vzartea ventricosa,
and a stout tall palm near the Gxocarpus Patawa.
In some respects it reminds me of the Casiquiari
towards the upper mouth. The muddy, shallow
water—winding considerably—the dense, intricate
vegetation of the shores where low—are the same,
but the Bombonasa is much smaller.
May 7 (Thursday).—The river went down nearly
1% feet in the night.
116 NOTES OF A BOTANED CHAP
Several small streams of black water were
passed to-day. There was no perceptible current
in them, and when the river is fuller it evidently
enters some way up them;-. . . The river winds
much, and reminds me of the Upper Pacimoni. This
morning we passed one reach due S. (z.e. where the
course of the river is N.), and towards evening we
made much easting.
May 9.—When our Indians have been an hour
or two on their way in the morning they proceed
to take their chicha. From the mass of crushed and
fermented yucas which they keep in a monstrous
jar in the prow, they take out handfuls and mix
with water to a drinkable consistency. The drink-
ing-vessels used are wide shallow basins varnished
and painted, whose use is general amongst the
Indians of Maynas. Each Indian will drink one
of these full twice or thrice—equivalent to about
half a gallon. In the process they occupy at least
half an hour, and are as merry and noisy (but not
so quarrelsome) as a lot of navvies over their beer.
At the same time they make their toilet, which
consists in carefully combing out their hair with
cane combs of their own manufacture, then tucking
up the back hair with a liana passed round the
head, while the narrow strip of long hair at the
sides is allowed to hang down over the ears, and
that on the forehead has been cut short, as already
mentioned. After this comes the painting. Each
man carries in his bag a slender bamboo tube, a
little larger than one’s finger, filled with anatto or
chica; from this he extracts a portion with a small
XVII TARAPOTO TO CANELOS 7
stick, and with the point of his forefinger makes
three broad red streaks from ear to ear, one below
the eyes, another along the base of the nose, and
sae third below the mouth. This done he no
doubt considers himself dressed for the day, and holds
his head a full inch higher.
May 11 (Monday).—After a gloomy but dry
night, we got under way this morning at 3 o'clock,
the river having abated 4 feet. The history of
to-day varies little from that of preceding days.
The same winding turbid river—in no place more
than 80 yards wide, and sometimes narrowing to
40 yards, when the current is stemmed with
difficulty.
May 14.—The banks now begin to be pictur-
esque: cliffs clad with ferns and mosses, a Helicomia
with distichous leaves and pendent scarlet and
yellowish spikes; a Calliandra like that at the Pongo
of the Huallaga, etc. ; tiny cascades falling over the
cliffs.
We breakfasted at the mouth of the Puca-yacu, the
most considerable stream we had seen entering the
Bombonasa. It comes in on the left bank with a
strong current—water muddy, reddish. Above
the mouth of this the water of the Bombonasa
is sensibly clearer, depositing very little earthy
matter when allowed to stand; it is whitish, like
the Upper Orinoco.
May %5.—Yesterday at 55 P.M. we reached
Palisada-Zipishko, and remained all night on an
island, where there was the broadest beach we had
seen on the Bombonasa. Pebbles begin to be larger
>
118 NOTES OF A BOTANICH pS
and more numerous; they are chiefly quartz and a
compact Dlucsstenc ye ae
Coasting along alow shore, our men spied a
small white alligator basking in the sun by the
margin, and killed him with their lances. His
stomach was distended by some food he had taken,
and on piercing it, a snake’s tail protruded. I laid
hold on it and drew out the snake, which was
closely coiled up; it was still alive (!), though so
much crushed below the head as to be unable
to move away. It was a terrestrial species, not
venomous——yellow with black spots on the back.
The body thick, passing abruptly into a_ short
slender tail—full 3 feet long, and its destroyer no
more. Thus we go on preying on each other to
the end of the chapter. This poor snake, while
watching for frogs among the moist stones and
roots, little dreamt he was about to serve for an
alligator’s meal; nor the alligator, while devouring
it, that he himself would soon be eaten up by
indians.
May 16 (Saturday)— ... The aspect of the
river is unchanged, save that there is more rarely
any low shore. Wehave passed some strong currents
to-day, but the water is fortunately low. Beaches
are now covered with large pebbles, and where we
breakfasted it was like a mosaic pavement, stones
of so many colours formed our seats and table.
May 17 (Sunday).—Near 8 o'clock a.m. we spied
a tapir a little ahead, making his way up-stream.
On perceiving our approach he took to shore,
where from a narrow margin rose a steep barranco,
which he was unable to ascend; he therefore again
XVII (eno ro iO CAN EWwOS 119
entered the water and attempted to pass down-
stream. At this moment we poured in shots upon
him from musket and pistol, which, however, did
not disable him, and he dived out of sight, but on
coming up near one of the canoes, an Indian
planted a lance in his breast. Several Indians then
leaped into the water, which was scarcely breast-
high, and speedily dispatched him. When swim-
ming he had only his head above water, and his
mouth wide open displayed a formidable set of
teeth. At the first reach we went ashore and cut
him up; he was a fat, well-grown male; few of the
shots had gone much beyond his thick skin. The
finest pieces were salted down and the rest partly
consumed on the spot and partly roasted for the
morrow.
May 19 (Tuesday).— . . . We stopped to break-
fast at 104 a.M., in the mouth of a stream called
Sarasyacu, which enters on the left bank. It is
of considerable size, with clear water and pebbly
bed. Here was a house and chacra with several
people. ... In the canoes moored here I saw
several batéas (wooden dishes) for gold-washing ;
they were made of some light wood, and were
about 15 feet in diameter—either in the form of a
meniscus or of a very low cone—and two projecting
pieces had been left on the margin for handles.
The gold found here is only in small quantity and
in very minute fragments. My companions washed
two or three pans of gravel, and in each found
three or four grains of gold; but it would be
necessary to go to a considerable depth to wash
with any chance of success, for the gravel is very
E20 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
loose and wet, so that the fragments of gold sink
into it by their weight.
At 44 p.m. we reached the pueblo of Sara-yacu,
on the left bank. It stands on a steep ridge 15 feet
above the high-water mark of the river and distant
perhaps 200 yards. On each. side of it amdiarea
short distance. is a deep ravine with ayriamleps at
the mouth the streams are barely 30 yards apart,
but the space between them widens higher up.
The track leading up to the pueblo has in one place
a steep slope on each side, with barely room for one
person to pass another. A barricade across this
strait would render it defensible by two men
against a hundred. ‘This position has no doubt
been selected for the pueblo with an eye to its
defence from attacks of Infieles, and it is far
stronger than that of Andoas, though there is some
similarity.
May 20 (Wednesday).—Our Indians from Andoas
should have returned home from Sara-yacu, but
as we found there neither Governor nor Curaca,
we persuaded them to go on with us to Puca-yacu,
where the Governor was at present residing, and so
paid then each 2 varas of Tocuyo for the additional
labour—all save two who could not be persuaded
to go farther. This day was passed dully enough
in the port of Sara-yacu, waiting till the Indians
should stuff themselves with masuto; enlivened only
by disputes about the payment to Puca-yacu, such
as are unavoidable in all traffic with Indians.
May 21 (Thursday).— ... We left at an early
hour, and the slight rise of the waters “eawe
us more depth in the rapids, so that we got on
XVII TARAPOTO LO CANER@S 12a
capitally, and at 4 p.m. reached the port of Puca-
yacu. Here we found that the village was nearly
a mile from the river and elevated 250 feet above.
it, the ascent being very steep and slippery. We
climbed up to pay our respects to the Governor, and
S8en returned to sleep in the port, | and Don .
Ignacio in our canoes, and the rest on a narrow
beach scarcely elevated 2 feet above the water.
The beach was margined by a bank of earth 6 feet
high, densely clad with overhanging trees and
bamboos, and then after a narrow strip of nearly
level ground rose a gentle acclivity. As we
supped at sundown, thunder was heard at no great
distance, and the heavens gradually became entirely
obscured by a dense mantle of clouds. The Indians,
who had gone up to the pueblo to take chica, now
rejoined us and also prepared to pass the night
on the beach. We had scarcely resigned ourselves
to sleep, at about 9 o'clock, when the storm burst
over us, and the river almost simultaneously began
to rise; speedily the beach was overflowed, the
Indians leaped into the canoes; the waters con-
tinued to rise with great rapidity, coming in on us
every few minutes in a roaring surge which broke
under the canoes in whirlpools, and dashed them
against each other. The lianas by which the
canoes were tied had to be moved every now and
then higher up the trees, and finally broke. The
Indians held on by the branches, and fortunately
found two contiguous lianas of Bignonia, which
having cut below, they fastened to the prow of each
canoe, their upper part being securely entwined
' [By barometrical observation, Spruce found the altitude of Puca-yacu
village to be 425 metres= 1394 feet.—ED. ]
122 NOTES OF A BOTANIST faa
in the branches overhead. Here we held on, the
Indians using all their efforts to prevent the canoes
from being smashed by blows from each other or
from the floating trees which now began to career
past us like mad bulls. So dense was the gloom
that we could see nothing, while we were deafened
by the pelting rain, the roaring flood, and the
crashing of the branches of the floating trees, as
they rolled over or dashed against each other; but
each lightning-flash revealed to us all the horrors
of our position. Assuredly I had slight hopes of
living to see the day, and | shall for ‘ever feel
grateful to those Indians who, without any orders
from us, stood through all the rain and storm of |
that fearful night, relaxing not a moment in their
efforts to save our canoes from being carried away
by the flood, or dashed to pieces by swinging
against each other, or against the floating timber.
As the waters rose higher, the stern of my canoe
got entangled in overhanging prickly bamboos,
which threatened to swamp it, and which we with
some difficulty cut away. Every hour thus passed
seemed an age, and the coming of day scarcely
ameliorated our position, for the flood did not abate
until 10 o'clock. About an hour before this, the
river began to fall a little, and as soon as the rain
passed we got the cargoes out and carried up to
the Governor’s house. It was past noon ere we got
breakfast—wearied to death, and myself in a high
fever, which happily passed off in the following night.
The river is only 4o yards broad in that place
(indeed before the flood there had not been more
than 25 yards of water, nowhere 3 feet deep), and
the rise during the night. had been 16 @ieeem
ela e! TARAPOTO jee) CANELOS [23
have not yet mentioned that our companion Don
Victoriano and the two muchachos, when the rising
waters drove them from the beach, thinking that
it was merely a brief thunder-shower which had
caught us, gathered up their beds and climbed the
barranco, where they set up two palm mats belong-
ing to the canoe, and sheltered themselves: under
them as well as they could; but scarcely had they
accommodated themselves here when the flood
reached them and burst on them so unexpectedly
that several articles which were loose, trousers,
handkerchiefs, etc., were swept away. . They retired
in all haste, and in the dense gloom, ignorant of
whither they were going, the only guide to their
position being the roar of the river. They wished
fo eliter the canoes, and called out at the top of
their voices, which were drowned by the loud
conflict of the elements, and the cries of the Indians
in the canoes were all unheard by them. Thus
they wandered about all night, the flood continually
obliging them to retreat farther inland, and when
day broke it found them half dead with cold, and
their clothes and bodies torn and wounded by
prickly bamboos and palms. To reach the canoe
they had to wade with the water to their waists.
As we were unloading the canoes, the barranco by
which we had at first been moored fell into the
river with several large trees on it; another peril
which we happily escaped by having had to move
lower down.
Puca-yacu consists of but eight houses besides
the convent and church; they are in the same style
as those of Andoas, and there is no cultivation
near them, though most have an odd tree of
124 NOTES” OF A BOGAN CHAP.
Wingo, another of Anatto, and some roots of the
twining Bignonia (Carajaru) planted by the door.
The Governor resides in the convent, which is
remarkable for having an upper story, the flooring
of which is of bamboo planks resting on rafters of
Tarapoto palm. The ground floor is scarcely made
any use of, for the kitchen is a low shed standing a
few yards apart; but the upper story is divided
along the middle by a bamboo partition, the
northern half being open at the sides, so as to form
a wide veranda, where the family pass the day ;
and the southern half is divided into two dormi-
tories, where they keep their household gods and
pass the night. The whole is very light and
cleanly, with superabundance of ventilation ; but we
have not yet experienced any high winds, the force
of the squalls being broken by higher ground across
a valley to north and north-east. We live with
the Governor, who has given up one of the dormi-
tories to us.
From the village there is a track in a northerly
direction which continues all the way to the river
Napo. At half an hour from the village it crosses
a stream called Baha-yacu, whose mouth is a very
little below the port; there are a few chacras on it,
and the gold-washings are said to be the best of
any of Bombonasa. The banks are steep and fall
in with every flood. The water runs over beds
of indurated clay, such as most of the rock on the
Bombonasa; though easily broken by the foot, it
resists remarkably the action of water. Pebbles
of quartz and blocks of compact blue stone are
evidently alluvial deposits.
In something under half a day the track brings
XVII hee OG TO: CANELOS 125
us to the head of the river Rutuno, a considerable
stream whose mouth we had seen below Sara-yacu.
All the way along it there are tambos of inhabitants
of Sara-yacu, Puca-yacu, and Canelos, who go
there to wash gold.
Piter the Rutuno-the head of the river Tigre is
passed ; this river holds its course nearly midway
between Pastasa and Napo, and falls into the
Marajfion.
A large stream, the Villano, is next passed; this —
runs into the river Curaray, whose junction with the
Napo is not far from the mouth of the latter.
From the Villano we come to its tributary, the
Giguino, on which there is a largish pueblo of
Zaparos. |
Next to this is another tributary of the Villano—
Callana-yacu, and then we come to
Ananga-yacu, which runs direct into the Curaray.
The Curaray itself is now reached. On this
also.are several Zaparos.
The Noshtro, to which we now come, has a
pueblo of Zaparos; it runs direct into the Napo, as
does also the Washka-yacu.
Passing these, we reach the Napo, at a small
pueblo called Aguana, not far from Santa Rosa;
whence there is a route over the Cordillera to Quito
which is impassable from June to September on
account of the streams being swollen by the melting
of the snows on Cotopaxi, as also by the depth of
snow on the highest point of the pass.
The Governor, Don Gabriel Cordena, is an
elderly man of about fifty, with quiet and very
devout manners. He has been twelve years on
126 NOTES OF A BOD NgtSsd CHAP.
the Bombonasa, but his native place is Quito.
Canelos, Puca-yacu, and Sara-yacu are all under
his rule, and he divides his residence equally among
them. It should be observed that hie @atle wie
Lieutenant-Governor, the Curaca of each pueblo
being considered its real governor. The labour
of the Indians is entirely voluntary, nor is there
any tariff of prices strictly adhered to. In conse-
quence, the Indians are sufficiently impertinent
and difficult to treat with. The pueblo of Puca-
yacu contains some nine men accustomed to carry
cargoes to the Sierra; and, alter more aimee
week’s delay, Don Ignacio and Don Victoriano
have with much difficulty persuaded five of these
to accompany them; the rest excuse themselves
from pretended sickness or some other motive, so
that I, who need seven cargueros, am still waiting
to see if I can induce the Indians of Sara-yacu to
accompany me, as they are much more numerous
than those of Puca-yacu. The Indians of Canelos
are away at their tambos on the Rutuno, etc., with
licence of absence for three months, which does
not expire till mune 20;
Don Gabicho (as he is familiarly called) presented
himself to us with shirt outside trousers (Amazon
fashion), so that it stood for jacket as well, and his
head adorned with a broad-brimmed hat of tamshe,
similar to those woven by the Indians of Maynas
of the same material; well ventilated but affording
no protection against rain; so, to render it water-
proof, he had stuck it all over with the feathers of
small birds, the points all directed to the brim.
I have rarely seen a gayer or stranger head-gear.
XVI Pow eOnOetO CANELOS Ay)
Puca-yacu is a colony of the still considerable
pueblo of Canelos. It contains also four or five
Jibaros, who are married to women of Canelos.
The Governor has in his house a Jibaro girl whose
history is singular. It seems that among those
Indians when a man of note dies it is the custom
to put his wives to death, in order that their spirits
may accompany him, as they did while in the body.
An old chief died two years ago, leaving four wives,
whereof one was scarcely nine years of age. This
poor creature, knowing that they would seek to
kill her, fled into the woods, and though pursued,
succeeded in reaching Sara-yacu, where the
Governor then was, and placed herself under his
mrotection. ter “friends” have since reclaimed
Mer, but ‘the Governor refuses to give her up, and
she still remains with him, and is an excellent
Setvantto Mis wife. She has been baptized by the _
name of Magdalena, the Governor and his wife
standing sponsors. She looks little like a widow,
with her slender, girlish figure and smart chitty
face. The Jibaro Indians still abound on the
Pastasa (above the mouth of Bombonasa) and on
its upper tributaries. There is a settlement of
them, commonly called the Jibaria, at three days
from Canelos, near the river Pindu, on the route
fo wanos. .°. .
There is a magnificent view looking west from
the plateau of Puca-yacu, but I saw it only once,
for about a couple of hours, in all its entirety. It
takes in an angle of about 60°, bounded left and
right by forest on adjacent elevations. At my
feet stretched the valley of the Bombonasa, taking
upwards a north-westerly direction, its waters not
128 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
visible, and audible only when swollen by rains.
Beyond the Bombonasa stretched the same sort
of boldly undulating plain I had remarked from
Andoas upwards, till reaching one long low ridge,
perhaps a little higher than Puca-yacu, of remark-
ably equable height and direction (north to south) ;
this is the water-shed between the Bombonasa and
Pastasa, and the latter river flows along its western
foot; a little north of west from Puca-yacu, the
course of the Pastasa is indicated by a deep gorge
stretching west from behind the ridge. This gorge
has on each side lofty rugged mountains (5000 to
6000 feet), spurs of the Cordillera; one of those on
the right is called Abitagua, and the track from
Canelos to Baifios passes over its summit. All this
was frequently visible, but it was only when the
mist rolled away from the plain a little after sun-
rise that the lofty Cordillera beyond lay in cloud-
less majesty. To the extreme left (south)=amse
very great distance, rose Sangahy (or the Volcan
of Macas, as it is often called), remarkable for its
exactly conical outline, for the snow lying on it in
longish stripes, and for the cloud of smoke almost
constantly hovering over it. A good way to the
right is the much loftier mountain called Los
Altares, its truncated summit jagged with eight
peaks of nearly equal elevation and clad with an
unbroken covering of snow, which glittered like
crystal in the sun’s rays, and made me think how
pure must be the offering on “altars” to whose
height no mortal must hope to attain. Not far to
the right of Los Altares, and of equal altitude, is
Tunguragua, a bluff irregular peak with rounded
apex capped with snow, which also descends in
XVI tava: Oho, tO CANELOS 129
streaks far down its sides. To the right of Tungu-
ragua, and over the summit of Mount Abitagua,
appeared lofty blue hills, here and there painted
with white; till on the extreme right was dimly
visible a snowy cone of exactly the same form as
Sangahy but much more distant and loftier; this
was Cotopaxi, perhaps the most formidable volcano
on the surface of our globe. Far behind Tungu-
ragua, and peeping over its left shoulder, was
distinctly visible, though in the far distance, a
paraboloidal mass of unbroken snow; this was the
summit of Chimborazo, so long considered the
monarch of the Andes, and though latterly certain
peaks in Bolivia have dethroned it, for ever im-
mortalised by its connection in men’s memory with
such names as Humboldt and La Condamine.
Thus to right and left of the view I had a volcano.
Cotopaxi I never saw clearly but once, but Sangahy
was often visible when the rest of the Cordillera
was veiled in clouds, and on clear nights we could
distinctly see it vomiting forth flame every few
minutes. The first night I passed at Puca-yacu |
was startled by an explosion like that of distant
cannon, and not to be mistaken for thunder. It
came from Sangahy, and scarcely a day passed
afterwards without my hearing the same sound
once or oftener; my ignorance of its origin at first
amused the people of Puca-yacu, to whom it was
a familiar sound.
[During his twenty days’ delay at Puca-yacu,
besides making notes on the general botanical
features of the district and collecting all the new
Mosses and Hepatics he could find, Spruce also
made, as he states in his Préczs a’un Voyage, ‘‘a
VOL. II K
I30 NOTES: OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
collection of the beautiful Coleoptera (beetles)
which were to be found there in great abundance.”
No doubt these were obtained in some of the
newly-cleared plantations of the natives on the
road to the Napo river, which he explored for
some distance. |
June 10 (Wednesday).—This day at 8 a.m. I got
off from Puca-yacu, where I had been waiting three
weeks. My companions had started on the last
day of May, and after their departure the Governor
went to Sara-yacu and with much trouble found
cargueros for me, as they had been frightened at —
the large size of my trunks when I passed up. I
again lightened them as much as I could by selling
and giving to Don Gabriel and his family every-
thing not absolutely necessary, and for one trunk
in which I had deposited my drugs, barometer, and
some other valuables I paid two cargueros. The
pay to each was 3 D. 2 Rs., with three varas of
bretafia (English calico), and to one who carried
a long but not heavy trunk I paid 4 D. and a
red handkerchief. They arrived at Puca-yacu on
Monday, but Tuesday being very rainy we could
not get off; the canoes, however, were put in readi-
ness for the following morning. There were four
of them, one lent me by the Governor and the rest
furnished by the Indians themselves, and intended
to be left in Canelos till their return. We started,
sixteen in number, for each of the seven cargueros
took with him a boy or young woman to carry his
food. The canoes are small, light, flat-bottomed,
not capable of carrying more than two of my
Crus:
[ june 12.—Reaching Canelos in the morning,
XVII Pais Oo ROTO kCANELOS 13a
Spruce found there only two Indians, from whom
he was able to buy some fowls and other provisions
to complete what was needful for the long journey
through the forests. Here all the elaborate pack-
ing of the baggage by the Indian carriers had to
be done, and the straps carefully arranged in a
peculiar manner, so as to be suitable for a route
where they are liable to be entangled by creepers
overhead and other difficulties. Then there was
food for the whole party of sixteen persons to
be carried by the boys and girls brought by
the Indians themselves, so that they were not
Seaemetnr late the next day. Then a heavy
storm came on which caused the actual start to
be put off till the morning of the 14th, at which
date the Journal continues the story in the next
chapter.
The region described by Spruce in the last three
chapters is characterised by the presence of the
singular plant usually called the Vegetable Ivory
palm, but which is now considered to form a distinct
natural order intermediate between true palms and
Cycads. Its very hard albuminous seeds, nearly
the size of hen’s eggs, are contained in compound
fruits as large as a man’s head, which are concealed
among the leaves close to the ground. These
seeds are largely exported and used to make buttons,
umbrella handles, and other small objects. The
plants occur thinly scattered from the mouth of the
Napo to Tarapoto and the Forest of Canelos on the
lower slopes of the mountains up to about 2500 feet,
and on the river-banks.
Spruce only once collected ripe fruits, and then
unfortunately lost them, as he describes in his
132 NOTES OF A BOTANIS®T ‘cxexzaa
Memoir on the Equatorial American Palms. I
here quote the incident :—
“On my voyage up the Huallaga in May 1855,
I gathered one morning some fully formed fruits of
Yarina, and as they were infested by stinging ants,
I laid them near the fire, where our breakfast was
being cooked, to disperse the ants, and then plunged
into the forest in quest of other objects. During
my absence the Indians, not knowing I wanted to
preserve the fruits, struck their cutlasses into them,
and finding the seeds still tender enough to be
eaten, munched them all up and thus destroyed my
specimens. I never again saw the Yarina in good
condition, except when I and my attendants were
already laden with specimens of other plants.”
Two species very closely allied (Phytelephas
macrocarpa and P. microcarpa) are spread over the
Eastern Andes, and Spruce described another
species (P. eguatortalis) from the Western Andes
of Ecuador, which differs in having a trunk some-
times reaching 20 feet high. ‘The leaves, of a fine
deep green colour, are from 30 to 4o feet long.
The plate here given is from a photograph taken
on the river Ucayali. |
FIG. 6.—VEGETABLE Ivory PALM (Phytelephas mtcrocarpa).
.
SS
=
\
Geer ts Rye VIE!
THROUGH THE MONTANA OF CANELOS TO BANOS
(June 14 to July 1, 1857)
[Tue Journal of this portion of Spruce’s travels
is so full and interesting, and the district passed
through is in many respects so remarkable, that
I have no hesitation in printing the account of it
almost entire. In the half-century that has elapsed
since it was written no other English traveller has,
I believe, passed over it. Two German botanists
made the return journey from Banos to Canelos in
April 1894, when they had better weather than
Spruce; but they describe the forest between the
Topo and Canelos as being quite uninhabited, and
the track so seldom traversed and so ill-defined
that even the guides lose their way !]
CANELOS TO BANOS
( Journat)
June 14, 1857.—It was about 8 a.m. when we
got off. We had a steep slippery descent to the
Bombonasa, which was crossed with difficulty and
risk, as the turbid, swollen waters careered violently
among and over rocks and stones. We crossed
near where it is joined by a large stream (Tinguisa),
35)
136 NOTES OF AsBOTANISma® CHAP.
by the side of which our course lay for above an
hour, sometimes crossing it, sometimes plodding
among stones and mud on its margin. At length
we turned away to the right and began to ascend
to a ridge, which gradually runs higher and sharper,
like many such in the Andes, whence they are
called cuchillas (knives). It separates the valley
of the Tinguisa from that of the Bombonasa. As
we ascended it, we had often on our left a steep
bare barranco of sand-rock and pebbly alluvium,
quite like what I had remarked along the Bom-
bonasa. At 2pP.M. we had come out on high ground,
nearly level, but still with steep declivities left
and right—where a cool wind was blowing. Though
so early, our men declared that there we must pass
the night, because it was the accustomed stopping-
place on the first day from Canelos, and they set
to work to clear the ground and to collect materials
for ranchos. Here, as in most other places on the
way, we occupied four ranchos, one for myself and
my servant, and the other three for the cargueros,
who generally chose a site a little retired—say,
thirty paces or more from our rancho. The ranchos
were merely a fall-to roof, resting on the ground,
and were erected in this way. Two stout sticks
about 9g feet long were stuck sloping into the
ground, about 4°to 6 feet apart; across these were
tied palm-fronds, after the fashion of large tiles,
till the roof had reached the required width, and it
was then secured at an angle of about 45 by
a forked stick stuck in front of each of the two
whereon the roof was framed. The palm-fronds
used were those of two species of Iriartea and of
Wettinta Maynensts. Of the Iriartea, the fronds
ae CANELOS TO BANOS 137
were split along the middle and the two halves
placed alongside, with the point of one to the base
of the other; but of the Wettinia, the pinnz of one
side were doubled over so as to fall between those
of the other side, and as they are remarkably
canaliculate-concave, a series of alternate convex
and concave surface was thus obtained, resembling
remarkably well the tiled roof of a house. Several
entire fronds with their pinne in the natural posi-
tion were fastened along the top of the roof, so as
to throw the rain both ways. On the ground
beneath other palm-leaves were extended, and on
these were placed our beds and boxes. The fire
was made midway, under the ridge of the roof.
A stick set up on each side, to sustain a cord
stretching across the fire, was essential for hanging
up our wet garments through the night to dry and
smoke. Two of the cargueros were considered my
personal attendants on the way, viz. the one who
carried my bed, the necessary changes of linen, and
other things likely to be needed, in a waterproof
bag ; and the one who carried the provisions in a
saparo, a nearly cylindrical basket 3 feet long and
2 feet in diameter, covered by a lid made of an
outer and an inner framework woven of the liana
Tamshe, with two or three layers of leaves of Vijao
securely packed between them so that no rain could
Enver. Lhe duty of these men was to erect my
rancho, and collect me firewood sufficient to
burn through the night. When we had got our
house set up and the necessary fuel and water
brought to it, my first care was to prepare coffee
—the greatest consolation a traveller can have after
a day’s work in the wet forest. After coffee a salt
138 NOTES (OF A BOTANTS® CHAP.
fowl was boiled and plantains roasted for supper.
Then, wrapped in my blanket and stretched on my
mattress, with my feet near to a good fire, I pre-
pared to pass the night, and I may say that how-
ever much I might have suffered through the day,
I generally slept tolerably well and rarely suffered
from cold.
June 15.—We had heavy thunder-showers from
2 to 4 A.M., and wet dripped from the roof on to the
foot of my bed. The day was cold and drizzling
throughout. Our course was still mostly along the
top of the ridge, gradually ascending, rarely descend-
ing a little to pass slight rivulets. About noon we
reached the highest part at a place called the
‘“Ventanas” (windows), where the track ran along
the edge of a steep barranco to the right, down
which we looked into a tremendously deep valley,
whose bottom was obscured by rolling mist, though
we distinctly heard the murmuring of the nascent
Bombonasa along it. Travellers and cargoes arrived
pretty well soaked at the end of this day’s journey,
and the same was the case through nearly all the
rest of the way. The ground to-day was mostly
gravelly. | 7
June 16.—Again heavy showers before daylight
which left the forest soaking wet for our journey.
There was a little sun till 9 o'clock, then came on
showers, which, with very short intervals, lasted
till 4 p.m. Our cargueros were accustomed to
breakfast at daybreak, I and my muchacho at the
same hour made our coffee and cooked a fowl to
be eaten on the way by some stream of cool water,
whenever hunger should invite us. On reaching
the first stream from our sleeping-place, the women
oar CANELOS TO BANOS 139
prepared large draughts of masato for the men, as
they said, to give them force, and the process was
repeated once or twice during the day. They had
also generally their marked resting-places, where
they made long halts after carrying their loads an
hour or an hour and a half together. On reaching
one of these, the women used to cut palm-leaves
and spread them on the ground, and the men, after
_ depositing their loads, threw themselves on the
leaves at full length. This day they had made
very long halts, so that although we went along
very slowly, and I often delayed to pluck a moss
from the branches, we had got far ahead of them.
The day was wearing away, and the clouds and
rain made the forest so gloomy that night seemed
nearer than it actually was. We waited a good
while at a place that seemed convenient for the
ranchos, till I began to shiver with cold, and |
actually turned back to see what had become of
them. The Indians from the first had been com-
plaining, ove suo, of the heavy cargoes, then of
the rain and the wet forest, and of the long dis-
tance they had to go. They might at any instant
leave their cargoes and return to Canelos, without
giving usa hint. Such a thing had happened many
and many a time. Even these very Indians on
their last journey towards the Sierra—conducting
the Padre and his cargoes—left him and his goods
at the Rio Verde, a day’s journey from Bajios.
The night is generally chosen for these elopements,
and when day breaks the unfortunate traveller finds
himself alone. Fortunately, my misgivings in this
instance were without foundation, and after I had
gone back a good distance I heard the voices of
140 NOTES’ OF A, BOTANITS i CHAP.
my people advancing, and conducted them to the
site I had chosen for our resting-place.
The road had been gently descending for most
of the day and was not so gravelly as yesterday,
while much sloppy ground had to be passed.
June 17.—A shower at 3 A.M. At daybreak rain
again came on and continued without intermission
till near noon, when we set off. We had gone for
scarcely two hours when we reached the large
stream called Puyu, a tributary of the Pastasa, and
found it so swollen that there was no hope of crossing
it; we must therefore again set to and construct
ranchos, and there await the river subsiding. My
chagrin at this delay was somewhat lessened by the
circumstance of finding myself in the most mossy
place I had yet seen anywhere. Even the topmost
twigs and the very leaves were shaggy with mosses,
and from the branches overhanging the river de-
pended festoons of several feet in length, composed
chiefly of Bryopterides and Phyllogium fulgens, in
beautiful fruit. Throughout the journey, whenever
rains, swollen streams, and grumbling Indians
combined to overwhelm me with chagrin, I found
reason to thank heaven which had enabled me to
forget for the moment all my troubles in the con-
templation of a simple moss. We had hoped to
reach the Jibaros settlement this day. The
chacras were said to be near, and two of our men
swam across the river Puiyu and before nightfall
returned with plantains.
June 18.—Slight showers before daybreak, but
the river had sufficiently abated to allow of our
passing it, and at 6 a.m. we started. On the
opposite side we were not long in coming on large
XVIII CANELOS EO BANOS I4l
plantations of yucas, plantains, yams, etc., and
about nine we reached a house where we found an
old man and several women. Here we remained
an hour, and I bought a cock of the old man,
though I must needs shoot it with my gun, as it
was wild and would not allow itself to be caught,
he said. After a short chase among the wet
yucas, I brought it down and we bore it off in
triumph. It took us two hours more to reach the
centre of the settlement, where are the Curaca’s
and two other houses. The way was very muddy,
and in that short distance traversed by above
twenty streams, with steep slippery descents to
them. It was noon as we reached the Curaca’s
house. We had had drizzling rain for some time
this morning, which with the heavy rain of yester-
day and the soft muddy nature of the earth had
put the track in very bad order and we reached
our halting-place in pitiable plight. A good many
years ago, it seems, some missionary had induced
these Jibaros to become Christians, and to erect a
church and convent, after the fashion of those of
Canelos and Puca-yacu, but they have long ago
renounced Christianity and the church has fallen to
decay. The convent was still tenantable and we
took possession of it—that is, I and my servants,
for the Indians installed themselves in the Curaca’s
house. The Curaca was absent in the forest and
did not return till evening, when I bought a couple
of fowls and some plantains of him. His name is
Huéléca—a young man of middle stature, slender in
body, but with remarkably muscular arms and legs.
Compared with our ‘ Christian” Indians from
Sara-yacu, we found him a person of gentlemanly
I42 NOTES OF A-BOTANISY CHAP.
manners and with none of the craving selfishness
of those people. I had therefore quite a pleasure
in offering him such little presents as I had kept in
store for that purpose. His wife was a tall young
woman with pleasing features, and they had four
small children, all ill of catarrhal fever. The
Curaca and every one about him were complaining
of illness, especially of rheumatic pains, which was
not to be wondered at from the wet and mud
among which they live at this season.’ In dry
weather the site must be rather pleasant; the
ground is highish, rising from the Puyu, which
furnishes water, though it is a good ten minutes’
walk to the river and back. When the sky is clear,
Mount Tunguragua, with its cope of snow, and the
lower wooded ridges in front of it are seen very
distinctly.
The afternoon of the day we arrived was nearly
fair, though cloudy and cool; but at two of the
following morning it came on to rain heavily and
continued without intermission till midnight.
Next day (20th) drizzling rain from sunrise till
nightfall. The sloppy ground, the soaked forest,
and the unceasing rain kept us close prisoners.
My Indians had been occupied in preparing chicha
for the remainder of the journey; this task was
completed, but the weather and the road were so
dreadful that we could not think of starting. They
declared they were quite out of heart, and they
1 Shortly after I passed by the Jibaria, Hueléca removed with his family to
Sara-yacu, to consult some noted medicine-man ; there his wife and one of his.
children died, and I have since learnt that he has burnt down his house and
the convent, and that he has removed to some other part of the forest where
the whites never pass, for to their contamination he believes that he owes his
bereavement.
XVIII CANELOS TO BANOS 143
absolutely refused to stir a step further unless |
would lighten my cargoes. They had received
their pay beforehand and I was therefore com-
pletely in their hands. I had brought from Tara-
poto a boxful of drying paper, and on our way up
the rivers I had dried a sprig or two of everything
accessible, and especially of Cryptogami, by placing
them in paper under my mattress in the canoe.
At Puca-yacu, fearful of increasing the weight of my
cargoes, I limited my collections to mosses. The
only way of lightening my cargoes was to throw
away all the paper not occupied by plants, and then
divide the remainder of the effects nearly equally
among my five boxes. This I did—with a heavy
heart—for I knew I should have much difficulty in
replacing the paper when I got out into the Sierra.
The savages made a bonfire of my precious drying-
paper and danced round it!
Sunday the 21st.—The sun shone out in the
morning, and we were gratified by the day holding
out dry and hot. We waited, however, till the
following morning to give time for the forest to dry
geeittle. Early on the 22nd we resumed our
journey. I had gathered small quantities of many
interesting mosses in the Jibaria, chiefly on logs
in the platanal by the convent, and on trees in the
forest by the Puyu; of these I made small bundles,
putting alternate layers of Mosses and Hepaticz so
that there might be no confusion of fallen lids and
calyptras, and dried them in the sun and by the fire.
The same plan I followed through the remainder
of the journey, depositing such mosses as [| could
snatch from the branches in a bag hung at my side,
when we halted for the night tying them up in
144 NOTES OF A BOTANIST gee
bundles, and then hanging them up through the
night ¢o smoke along with our soaked garments.
Monday was also happily a sunny day. The
way was mostly along level ground, often through
beds of tall prickly bamboos, and lodales (muddy
places), the mud being, as might be supposed, con-
genial to the bamboos, and often hiding fallen
prickly branches of the latter which wounded our
feet. I wore throughout the journey a pair of
india-rubber shoes which I had fortunately bought
off the feet of a wandering German I met in La
Laguna. They were slippery in the descents,
where I required to step cautiously in them, and
they were easily pierced by thorns and stumps, but
they were uninjured by mud and wet, and so long
as I kept in movement my feet were never cold in
them, even when they filled with water. In fording
the streams I kept them on my feet; on reaching
the opposite bank I slipped them off and poured
the water out, then in an instant slipped them on
again and resumed my march without experiencing
the least inconvenience. We had got off about
seven, and it was near ten o’clock when we reached
another Jibaro hut, and the last of the pueblo of
Pindo. Here we rested awhile, and my Indians
partook of chicha which was offered them. I con-
sidered myself fortunate in buying a couple of
fowls and the leg of a tapir. Shortly after we
crossed the Pindo, a considerable stream with a
broad white beach strewn with blocks and much
resembling the Cumbasa below Tarapoto. This
stream receives the Puyu (which also we crossed
this day, quite near the Jibaria), and the two
united are navigable for small canoes to the
eit CANELOS TO BANOS 145
Pastasa, which is at no great distance. We were
gradually approaching the Pastasa, and we slept at
night on a plain where the rushing of its waters
was distinctly audible.
June 23.—About 10 A.M. we reached Allpa-yacu,
a stream of clear cool water about the size of the
Pindo. ‘This also was low and we got across it
without accident. ‘There were steep cliffs of gravel
on the east bank just above the ford. Our way to-day
was almost entirely across a plain, bounded on the
left by a very steep alluvial cliff (which gives the
name of Barrancas to the site), at whose foot ran
tie Pastasa. [here is a great contrast between
the aspect of this river here—leaping and foaming
over rocks with a din which throughout the rest
of our journey we heard more or less distinctly—
and in the lower part of its course, where it spreads
out into a broad placid river. The track in places
ran along the very edge of the cliff, and the pro-
jecting bushes menaced thrusting us over. At
about 2 P.M., on the top of a low hill, we came to a
rancho, but as our Indians were still disposed to
proceed we determined to sleep at a more advanced
post. From this place we descended into a deep
ravine, and crossed a narrow clear stream with
some peril, as the ford was over slippery stones on
a steep declivity. To our right the water came
down from a lofty hill in a cascade. To climb out
of the ravine we had to use hands as well as feet,
but a winding path might be easily made, for the
soft sandstone admits of being cut by a spade.
We slept about half-way down the descent of the
other side of the mountain, but were wetted by a
shower ere we could get our ranchos put up.
VOL. II L
146 NOTES OF ASBOiwyNiISm CHAP.
June 24.—This morning in less than an hour we
reached a narrow but rather deep rocky stream,
remarkably like so many others in the Montafia of
Canelos for its crystalline water. We crossed it
near its junction with the Pastasa, on the banks of
which and above its mouth rise lofty cliffs from the
rivers edge, to avoid which it is necessary to
climb over the most formidable mountain on the
whole route, named Abitagua, and perhaps 6000
feet high. It was near midday when we reached
the summit. At something more than half-way
up is a puesto (resting-place) called Masato,
whence there is a view down the valley of the
Pastasa, extendino? i. 1s said, in clear weather
even to the Marafion. I could distinguish the
water of the river Pastasa apparently a little below
Andoas, but beyond this the sky was too hazy to
make out anything. From Masato upwards the
ascent is painful—steep, rugged bits alternating
with flats of mud, sometimes over the knees. On
the top is a long narrow plain, where the intervals
between the trees are occupied by loose mud. At
the western extremity of the plain is a small open
dryish space where a cross has been erected.
From this site the heights of Patati and Guay-
rapata in the Sierra are visible, as are also the
much nearer ridges running from Llanganati
between the Topo and the Shufha: )reeqaeene
cross there is a steep short descent, and then
another long muddy level, about midway of which,
and a little to the right of the track, there is a
hollow filled with clear cold water—in fact, it may
be called a lagoon, though there are mounds here
and there on it with trees, true Vaccinia, etc., on
a CANELOS TO BANOS 147
them. Perhaps never a day passes without rain
on this mountain, and its summit is nearly always
enveloped in mist, which looks as if it were per-
manently hung up in the trees. The trunks and
branches of the latter, and often even the upper-
most leaves, are densely enveloped in mosses.
Various species of Plagiochila, Mastigobryum, Phyl-
logonium, Bryopteris, etc., hang from the branches
feetne lenoth of 1 to 3 feet, and in such thick
bunches that when saturated with rain they often
break off even green branches by their weight. I
have been told by the cargueros of Bafos that
when they pass with cargoes through the most
mossy parts of the Montafia after much rain has
fallen they step with constant dread of being
crushed by some ruptured branch. I examined
hastily such mossy branches as had fallen across
our path, and often found on them a Holomitrium
and a Bryum, which I never got in any other
situation.
We had fortunately fine weather until reaching
the cross of Abitagua; after passing this we had
smart rain all the way down. The descent was
long and rugged and took us two hours and a half.
At the base was a stream of beautiful water quite
Sie that on the eastern side. On a hill of. small
elevation, called Casha-urcu (‘“ Prickly Hill,” because
of the ground being strewed with thorny twigs of
bamboos), rising from the opposite bank of the
stream, we drew up for the night.
June 25.—We had heavy rain from midnight ;
when day broke we prepared for the journey,
hoping that the rain would pass, but in vain, for
it abated not till two in the afternoon, when it was
148 NOTES OF AsBOtaN Tsai CHAP.
too late to start. This was a most dismal -day,
and filled us with anxious thoughts for the passage
of the Shufia and Topo, which rivers the Indians
began to predict would be swollen. They, how-
ever, were consoled by meeting near our ranchos
a band of large monkeys, several of which they
brought down with their blowing-canes.
June 26.—Rain again from midnight, but about
nine in the morning it abated so much as to allow us
to get under way. Road dreadful, what with mud,
fallen trees, and dangerous passes, of which two in
particular, along declivities where in places there
was nothing to get hold of, are not to be thought
of without a shudder. In three hours we reached
the Shufia, a larger stream than any we had pre-
viously passed ; it comes from the north-east in a
steep rocky course, and can only be forded after
long-continued dry weather, and even then with
danger. Now we found it much swollen, but as
the tops of the rocks on which it is customary to
rest the bridge were out of water, though we had
to wade in 3 feet of water to get to theme
set to work to get materials for the bridge. These
were merely three long poles, not of the straightest,
laid from rock to rock and lashed together with
lianas. An Indian posted on each rock held up the
opposite ends of a fourth pole to a convenient
height to serve for a hand-rail, by means of which
one could cross the narrow slippery bridge with
some degree of security. We all got safely across
the Shufia, but it had again come on to rain, and
we bent our steps towards the Topo with mis-
givings that we should find it altogether impass-
able. On the west side of the Shufia there is a
Sau CANELOS TO BANOS 149
steep cliff, perhaps 150 feet high, of dangerous
ascent. In some parts of it on projecting ledges
poles are set up with notches cut in them wherein
to step, but they were very slippery, and in clam-
bering up them I trusted more to my hands than
to my feet. Beyond this the ground is nearly
level to the Topo, which we reached in an hour
more. Here our worst fears were realised. The
Topo, as far as we could see up it, and downwards
to its junction with the Pastasa, was one mass of
foam, and the thunder of its waters against the
rocks made the very ground shake to some distance
from the bank. The Topo is perhaps the largest
tributary of the Pastasa on the north side; its
course is much shorter than that of the Bombonasa,
but more water seems to come down it. Its
source is in the snowy mountain Llanganati—the
fabulous El Dorado of the Quitensians. . . . This
mountain and its offshoots occupy nearly al! the
space between the head of the Napo and the Rio
de Patate, both which rivers rise in Cotopaxi. .
The Topo is never low enough to be fordable on
foot, and though numerous explorations of its
banks have been made for some leagues up, no
place has been found practicable for a bridge save
the accustomed one, which is about 200 yards
above its junction with the Pastasa. Here, on
each side of the river, which is perhaps 100 feet
wide, stands a large rock, nearly flat-topped, and
rising some 12 feet above high water; they are
rather difficult of access, but can be clambered
OS oo
In the middle of the river, and in a line with
these two rocks, is a smaller one of equal height,
I50 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP,
to which bridges could be thrown, and a third —
short bridge to the right bank of the river (where
is a narrow channel, sometimes dry), between the
large rock and the actual margin, rendered the
crossing of the river complete. Ordinary floods
did not reach these bridges, but after long and
heavy rains they were carried away, the rocks
supporting them being laid deep under water.
Yet they sometimes lasted so many months that
the bamboos began to decay, and have given way
under people who incautiously attempted to pass
them. In one of these high floods, some eight
years ago, the intermediate rock was toppled over,
and as it now lies it is so much lower than the
others that it no’ longer serves to support the
bridges. From this cause, the Topo has now to
be passed by four bridges, thrown from the sides to
three rocks in the water, about 20 yards higher
up than the ancient site. These rocks#aremall
smallish and uneven-topped, and the middle one is
so low that a very slight flood suffices to render it
inaccessible. When we reached the margin, this
rock was barely visible at long intervals, and then
came surging waves which laid it 1 to 2 feet under
water, and would have swept away instantly the
poles attempted to be laid on it. The Indians
declared that until this stone should be left un-
covered there was no hope of getting across; we
therefore cast about to make the preparations neces-
sary for passing the night in this place. So many
travellers have been detained here by the swollen
Topo, that the narrow isthmus between the Topo
and the Shufia has been ransacked of everything
available for food or shelter. Not a palmito is now
xvItt CANELOS TO BANOS 151
to be met with, nor even a palm-leaf wherewith to
thatch a rancho. Our Indians therefore made the
roofs by tying long slender sticks across each other,
so as to form small squares, and then overlaying
them with such large leaves of terrestrial and
epiphytal Aroidez (chiefly species of Anthurium)
as they could meet with. Roofs so constructed
are not proof against heavy rains, and the leaves
soon begin to shrivel and rot. Our huts being put
up, we cooked our humble supper and lay down to
sleep. At 9 p.m. heavy rain came on and continued
without intermission till daybreak (5 a.m.) of the
27th. When we looked out in the morning we
saw that the river had risen still higher, and there
was no hope of getting across this day. Our pro-
visions began to run low. The Indians had drank
their last chicha, and they had all along kept
robbing me of such eatable things as I could not
keep under lock and key, so that my stock of salt
fowls was reduced to three, and I had only besides
a few dried plantains in a tin secured by a padlock ;
with their usual carelessness for the morrow,
they had already eaten up the large monkeys killed
at Casha-urcu, and all their provision consisted of
a few baked plantains.
The day continued gloomy, but no more rain
fell. I sallied forth along the river-bank to see if I
could meet with anything eatable. Rude granite
blocks, often with quartz veins, and here and there
small masses of pure quartz, were so heaped up as
not to be passed without difficulty and danger.
Among them grew scattered plants of a small
Cardamine, of which I gathered all I could find to
sat aS Salad. [| then struck into the forest and
152 NOTES OF A BOs CHAP.
anxiously scrutinised all the trees and the ground
beneath them, in the hope of meeting some edible
fruit ; but it was not the proper season, and I could
only find a single tree of a Miconia (Melastomacez)
about 20 feet high, with small insipid black berries
about the size of swan-shot. ‘This I decided to cut
down the following day, should we be unable to get
away, and boil up the berries with about a handful
of sugar which I had still left. Neither I with my
gun nor the Indians with their blowing-canes could
meet a single living thing save toads.
At about four in the afternoon the sun shone out
among the clouds, and though the river fell not,
there seemed some chance of its abating before
morning ; so, that all might be in readiness for this
desirable contingency, I set the Indians to work to
get out the bamboos and lianas required for the
bridges. About a quarter of a mile back from our
ranchos, and on moist rising ground, are large beds
of bamboos affording abundant materials for bridging
the Topo. The old stems are so inwoven to one
another and to adjacent trees, by means of their
arched thorny branches, that, though cut off below,
it is impossible to get them down. On this account,
stems of a year’s growth are chosen; these are as
tall as the older ones, but have no branches, only
spiniform pungent branch-buds at each joint, which
must be lopped off, or they would wound the hands
and feet. About 4o feet of the stems is available
for the bridges ; above this height they are generally
so much thinner as to be easily broken off. When
cut down and trimmed, each man drags one to the
river’s brink, which is no easy task over ground
where there are so many obstructions; and in the
XVIII CANELOS TO BANOS 153
bamboo-flats so many dead thorny branches are
Simewed that the feet do not fail to, be sorely
wounded. When a dozen bamboos had _ been
dragged out the Indians fell tired and could not be
induced to fetch the four more which were needed
to make the bridges sufficiently strong, so we had
but three instead of four for each bridge.
mo mightiall the river seemed: to be falling
slightly, and we retired to rest not without hope of
seeing it passable when day broke; but after mid-
night heavy showers came on and continued till
near 5 A.M. (June 28), so that the morning light
showed us the river as much swollen as ever. The
sun looked out on the wet forest for a brief interval
and then was hidden by clouds, which speedily
overspread the whole heaven, so that we could not
doubt more rain was coming. The Indians had had
long consultations amongst themselves the previous
day, the purport of which I could not doubt was the
expediency of deserting me and returning to their
homes. I also had proposed to them that two or
three of their party should return to the Jibaria,
and from thence bring plantains for the rest, as |
had been told by the Governor of Canelos that
such a thing was sometimes done. But they shook
their heads and said that if one went they must all
go, that they were weary and famished, and that
the women would die if they returned not soon to
their own country; so that I plainly perceived if I
once sent them away I should see their faces no
more. On the 28th, however, they began to talk
openly of the necessity of returning, seeing, as they
said, that before the river could abate we must all
perish of hunger. And in truth our state seemed
154 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
desperate, our provisions altogether would not
suffice for more than a couple of meals, say to keep
body and soul together for two days. Of the painful
thoughts that passed through my mind at this
critical juncture my rough notes contain no record,
and writing now, after six months have elapsed, I
shrink from recalling them. The conclusion of my
cogitations was to remain by my effects till death
or help should arrive; and my lad, who promised
not to desert me, was of the same opinion. We
calculated that we should be able to keep alive for
a week, and in that time perhaps some trader might
come from the Sierra on his way to Canelos. The
‘Indians also were loath to turn back for this reason
that they had received their pay in money, with
which they hoped to buy great store of calico in the
Sierra, where it would cost them but a real the vara,
whereas if they took the money back to Sara-yacu
they must give four reals the vara for the same sort
of calico to some trader who should by a rare chance
go thither. I called a council by the river-side, in
order to consult on the possibility of throwing the
second bridge to a rock a few yards higher up the
stream than the one that was under water, but so
much higher out of the water than the first stone
that the bridge resting on it must necessarily slope
considerably, and so far apart that it was doubtful if
the bamboos would span the distance. I had pro-
posed the same thing to them yesterday, when they
had declared it impossible, but now they seemed to
think that if the bamboos would only reach the
upper rock the plan was feasible. There was no
time to be lost, for heavy rain was coming, and it
was probable the river would speedily rise, so to
an CANELOS TO BANOS 155
work at once we went. ‘hough the crossing these
frail bridges is a ticklish operation, it may well be
supposed that the fixing them is far more perilous.
A bamboo was placed resting towards the base on
a stone by the margin; its point was then elevated
considerably by two or three men weighing down
the end by their united force; in this position it
was swung round till it hung over the rock on
which it was intended to rest, when the point was
gradually lowered till the bamboo lay as it was
required. By the same process a second bamboo
was placed alongside the first, and then a man at
the imminent risk of his life crawls along them till
reaching the rock whereon they rest. He carries a
liana rope attached to the root-end of a third
bamboo, which he now, with some help from those
on shore, draws after him and places alongside the
other two; the bridge is thus stronger than if all
the points were laid the same way. Finally, the
bamboos were lashed tightly together by lianas at
about. every 2 feet, and stones laid on them at
each end to keep them firmer. So deafening was
the roar of the waters that all these operations were
carried on through the medium of signs. A move-
ment by the hand to imitate chopping was the
signal that a knife or cutlass was wanted, and the
hands twirled round one another asked for a roll of
liana. The first bridge was short and completed
without difficulty, but when they came to throw the
bamboos to the second rock, which, as I have said,
was much more distant and higher out of the water,
it was found that their points merely reached the
sloping side of the rock and not to its summit, and
that the surging waves every now and then washed
156 NOTES OF A BOGAN CHAP.
over them. Four bamboos were laid side by side
before any of the Indians would venture to pass to
the other extremity, though one of them was after-
wards drawn away to enter into the composition of
the third bridge. They were at length securely
lashed together, and then the third bridge was
completed with more facility, being somewhat
shorter though sloping from a high to a low rock.
The fourth and last bridge was short and speedily
constructed. Jt was near noon when the bridges
were ready for crossing. It had been raining
heavily for some time, and the river already began
to show signs of a further rise ; our safety depended
therefore on getting over as speedily as possible.
And now became evident what I had all along
feared, namely, that the second bridge was so long
and so weak, and bent so much when a man went
over it, that a very little addition to his weight
would plainly either cause it to break or the farther
end to slip off the rock whereon it rested but too
insecurely. To get across my heavy boxes would
be plainly impossible; the Indians indeed flatly
refused to risk themselves on the bridge under the
weight of any one of my boxes.
It was doubtful if an additional bamboo would
make the bridge strong enough, and there was now
no time to get one out. I had therefore no alter-
native but to leave my goods where they were, and
trust to be able to send from Bajos to fetch them
away. With some difficulty I got across my bed
and a change of linen and what little money I had,
and left my boxes as well protected as I could
from the moisture both above and beneath.
We were a good while in all getting across, for
an CANELOS TO BANOS 157
we must pass one by one with slow and cautious
steps, where one slip might be fatal. Though the
bamboos were scarcely so thick as one’s leg and
completely wetted, the natural asperity of their
cuticle rendered passing along them less insecure
than I had feared; but the longest bridge bent so
low when we reached the middle that beyond this.
it was like climbing a hill, and in this part a surging
wave wetted me to the knees, but I stood firm and
allowed it to pass. The river was obviously rising
and our bridge must soon be swept away.
Those who have escaped from death by hunger
or drowning may understand what a load was taken
off my heart when we had all got safely across the
Topo, although I had been obliged to abandon so.
many things which to me were more valuable
than money. On the following day we might
hope to reach the Rio Verde, where is a hacienda
for the fabrication of cane-brandy, and the first
habitation on the skirts of the Montafa. The rain
came down heavier than ever, and the forest was
like a marsh, but we dashed on as quickly as we
could. The track lay mostly along nearly level
ground, with a high cliff to our left, and the Pastasa
roaring along its base. In one part we had to wade
for nearly a mile though fetid mud in which grew
beds of gigantic horse-tails 18 feet high, and nearly
as thick as the wrist at the base. At length we
came to where we had to descend to the beach of
fie Pastasa, or ‘‘ Arenal” as it is called. Here it
ment truly be said_“C’est le. premier pas qui
cotite,” for the descent began by a ladder—merely
a notched pole down a rock which overhung the
very Pastasa at a height of 150 feet above it; and.
158 NOTES OF A BOTANIST slice
it may well be supposed how each as he descended
the pole clung to it like grim death. We all got
safely down to the beach, where we could get along
more pleasantly.
When the two Spaniards left me at Puca-yacu ]
sent by them a tin box asking them to return it full of
bread from the Sierra, when they should send back
their cargueros. I had hoped to meet the bread
about the Jibaria, but I afterwards learnt that my
companions had had a long disastrous journey
through the Montafia, and that the swollen Topo
kept them waiting three days. However, when we
got down to the Arenal, we saw some Indians
advancing and recognised them for our friends of
Puca-yacu. They brought my bread, which thus
came very opportunely, and I immediately shared
out a loaf to each of my hungry companions,
reserving enough for other two rations. |
The Indians of Puca-yacu, on learning the state
of the Topo, did not delay a minute, but started off
at the top of their speed. I afterwards learnt that
when they reached the Topo the bridges were
beginning to move, that they crossed with some
peril, and that immediately afterwards the longest
bridge was carried away. We continued along the
margin of the Pastasa till the sun began to get low,
indeed the rain did not clear away so as to allow us
to see his face until 2 o'clock, and at about 4 ean
came on a rancho thatched with leaves of Arrow-
reed, where we drew up to pass the night.
We were still a good way from the end of the
Arenal. Whilst my supper was preparing I had
leisure to examine it a little. The gerge/or tie
Pastasa, though still bounded on the north side by
on CANELOS TO BANOS 150
the same high cliff as we had seen from Barrancos
upwards, opens out here to a considerable width,
and here and there the river forms islands. The
broad sandy beach, strewed in some parts with
gravel and in others with angular blocks, bears
marks of having been at some epoch permanently
under water, but much of it lies now above the limit
of the highest floods, and is in some parts covered
by a dense but not intricate vegetation, among
which the Laurel is the most conspicuous plant. I
was also much struck by a Diosmeous shrub with
sarmentose pinnate branches, and small flowers of
which the petals persist after flowering and become
distended by a purple-black fluid which I afterwards
found to be the universal substitute for ink at
Bafios. On the sand grew a pink-flowered Polygala
g inches high, and some other herbs, but especially
Melilotus offictnatts, which must have been brought
down from the mountains; and amongst the under-
shrubs a bushy digitate-leaved Lupin was very
frequent. These plants were all new to me, but
along with them, and especially in places which the
floods still reach, grew abundance of Gynerium
saccharinum with the same tall Gymnogramme and
the same Composite tree as were so abundant on
the beaches of the Mayo and Cumbasa near
Tarapoto. They were accompanied by an Equi-
setum, resembling £. fluvzatele, and distinct from
the tall species mentioned above.
June 29.—The night was fortunately dry, and at
daybreak I had our last fowl cooked and the
remainder of the plantains distributed among the
Indians, besides a loaf of bread to each. At sunrise
we got off, and about the same hour rain came on,
160 NOTES OF A PBOTANIST CHAP.
and continued till noon. Though not very heavy,
it had the accustomed effect of putting the forest in
weeping plight. The track, instead of improving
as we approached the residences of civilised people,
was this day decidedly worse than ever, and the
natural obstructions were multiplied almost tenfold.
At 8 o'clock we reached the terminus of the beach,
above which the Pastasa ran close to the barranco,
so that we could no longer follow its banks.
And now commenced a series of ascents and
descents, of which I counted eight from Mapoto to
Rio Verde. Of these, the first two ridges were the
highest and most fatiguing. Beyond these was a
narrow sloppy plain at whose further side we had
to pass a long puddle-hole called Runa-cocha, in
which are laid slender poles from one projecting
stone or tree-stump to another, and as they were
now covered by water it was difficult to step on
them. I had, in fact, the pleasure of slipping off
them into the water nearly up to my waist. As the
Indians travelled now without cargo, they got much
ahead of me, and I know not how long they had
been at the Rio Verde when I came out there, at
3 P.M., very much wayworn. What a pleasure it
was to see again a white man’s habitation, with plots
of cultivated land! The hacienda has only been
recently established, and the dwelling-house, which
has an upper story, was unfinished; but there was
a cane-mill worked by water-power, and from
twenty to thirty people at work cutting cane in the
adjacent cane-piece, distilling brandy, etc.
The Rio Verde is very little less than the Topo,
and, like it, is unfordable. We crossed it by two
stout poles laid from rock to rock at a part where
“vin CANELOS TO BANOS 161
the river was confined to a narrow gorge. Immedi-
ately below, it opened out into a deep basin where
the water was so clear and green that one sees the
name of ‘“ Verde” has not been given to the river
without reason. Its course is down a steep valley
from north to south, and at its mouth it falls over
the barranco of the Pastasa in an unbroken cascade
of perhaps 200 feet high.
We had obviously been ascending all day, and
when we came out on the open ground of the Rio
Verde, a cold, penetrating wind was blowing. Here
we found that the common plantain would no longer
bear the climate, though the small species called
Guineo was still flourishing. Oranges and sugar-
cane did not attain the size they did on the Amazon.
On the other hand, productions of cooler climates
began to make their appearance, such as potatoes
and zanahovias, which seem a sort of parsnip.
These are planted in far too small quantity to
suffice for the consumption of the people employed
in the hacienda, who being from the Sierra, their
food consists chiefly of potatoes, pea-meal, and
barley-meal. I was therefore disappointed in my
expectation of finding materials for a plentiful re-
fection for all my party, and with much difficulty
bought a few potatoes and zanahovias, and a small
quantity of barley-meal, besides a couple of bottles
of aguardiente for the Indians, who esteemed it
much more than the food.
fune 30.—Although at the Rio Verde I slept
under the shelter of a good roof, I suffered more
from cold than I had done in the forest, for a cold
wind came through the unfinished flooring and walls
of the upper story, where I had made my bed.
VOL. II M
162 NOTES OF A BOTANISa CHAP,
From Rio Verde to Banos, a distance of some
15 English miles, the road runs near the Pastasa,
but only in two places, in each for:near a mile,
along the actual beach; in other parts it passes
over elevated pampas, or makes detours over hills
to avoid steep cliffs, especially at the cataract of
Agoyan.. For the first hour from Rio Verde we
were on elevated, nearly level ground, called
Quillu-turu or yellow mud. As to the mud, well ©
does it deserve to be signalised by such a name,
though the actual tint is as often black as yellow.
In no part of the Montafia had we harder toil in
tramping through the mud than here; in other
respects the road was a tolerably good mule-track,
not very wide, but kept clear of rubbish; and after
passing Quillu-turu it was mostly sound and often
gravelly. At nearly two hours from Rio Verde we
came to a hacienda on a beach by the Pastasa,
called the Playa de Antombos, where the mistress,
a very hospitable lady, must needs have us enter
and take some refreshment. Here we learnt that
the late rains had been equally heavy in the Sierra,
and that on the preceding day the Pastasa had
swollen so much as to break the bridge of Agoyan,
though this is 40 feet above the river at low water.
She had yesterday sent a lad to the town with
aguardiénte and counselled us to await his return,
as if he did not come it was a sign that the bridge
was impassable. Here was another delay, and it
seemed as if my progress must be arrested by
swollen rivers up to the very last day, as it had
been almost from the first. The lad did not
arrive until near evening, all too late for us to start
again for Banos, although he reported that the
XVIII CANELOS Ee BANOS 163
bridge might still be passed by one person at a
time without much risk.
Here I found a stronger and cooler wind than
even at the Rio Verde, and as I had with me no
garment proper for the cool region, I was glad to
purchase of a carpenter at Antombos a new poncho,
of two thicknesses, of scarlet bazeta or baize. This
was a welcome addition to my blankets at night,
and afterwards served me much in riding about on
the cold high lands.
July 1.—Our kind hostess gave us an early
breakfast, and then we began our last day’s journey.
On reaching the bridge of Agoyan, we found it to
consist of three or four trunks of trees laid across
from cliff to cliff (for the river here foams between
steep black walls of trachyte), and covered with
branches of Retama (Spartium junceum) and earth.
Of the trunks only one remained unbroken, and we
crossed it with cautious steps and slow, but without
accident. We were still a league from the village
of Bafios, but a short way beyond the bridge we
reached a farm called Ulva, where the owner
(a widow lady) was so good as to lend me a horse,
mounted on which i arrived at Bafios early in the
afternoon. Following the recommendation of the
lady of Antombos, I sought out the Teniente parro-
quial, and requested him to procure me a lodging.
He accordingly put me into an unoccupied house
in the playa, one of the only two tiled houses in the
village. See me, therefore, at the end of my travel
of 102 days (counting from my departure from
Tarapoto on the 22nd of March), but by no means
at the end of my “travayle.”
As I arrived at the Hacienda del Rio Verde—
164 NOTES, OF A BOTANISE CHAP.
the first habitation of civilised men—on June 29,
the journey up to that point had lasted just 100
days.
[As a conclusion to this chapter it will be well
to give here the short account of the Forest of
Canelos—geographical, historical, and botanical—
contained in the Préczs dun Voyage, which is of
much general interest, as it is now, probably, in
exactly the same condition as when Spruce tra-
versed it, if not, from the point of, view of the
traveller, even worse. ‘The translation follows the
original in being written in the third person. |
The Montafia de Canelos has not any fixed
limits. It extends between the parallels of 1° and
2° S. latitude, and the meridians ofy77 =6.7..
west of London, exceeding these limits in a few
places. Within this space are included the sources
of several tributaries of the Pastasa and the Napo,
and a part of the upper course of these rivers them-
selves. It is bounded on the west by the volcanoes
Cotopaxi, Llanganati, and Tunguragua; and on
the east it slopes imperceptibly down to the plain
of the Amazon, towards the middle of the course
of the Bombonasa.! It will be understood that,
with the exception of the little plantations made
by the Indians, the whole of this district is primeval
forest. It was in this forest of Canelos and on the
banks of the Curaray and the Napo, that Gonzalo
Pizarro wandered for more than two years, search-
ing for cities as rich as those of Peru, which he
imagined must exist there; hoping besides to dis-
cover that great river, which, uniting all the rivers
of the Cordillera, ran from west to east, to empty
1 Spruce spells this word either with or without the ‘‘m.”
XVIII CANELOS TO BANOS 165
itself into the Atlantic Ocean—an honour of which
he was robbed by his lieutenant, Orellana. He had
left Quito in December 1539 with 350 Spaniards
and 4000 Indians, and he returned with only 80
Spaniards, having lost all the Indians either by
death or flight.
Two hundred and thirty years later, Madame
Godin des Odonais, wife of one of the fellow-
labourers of M. de la Condamine, wishing to join
her husband at Cayenne, chose the route of the
Amazon. Leaving Riobamba, a town of the
mmdes of Quito, towards the end of the year
1769, she arrived at Canelos without any accident.
There she found the village deserted on account
of an epidemic of smallpox. The Indians of the
Sierra, who had until then carried the effects of
Madame Godin, fearing the infection, immediately
Wetraced their steps. [here then remained with
her only her two brothers and six persons of her
suite, all unaccustomed to navigation. Finding no
boat at Canelos, they constructed a kind of raft,
but not knowing how to manage it, on the second
day it was upset and they lost almost all their effects,
including the provisions. Attempting then to follow
on foot the course of the Bombonasa, they lost
themselves in the forest, and after having wandered
about for several days, they succumbed one by one
to hunger and fatigue, so that soon Madame Godin
alone remained alive. . Moved more by the neces-
sity for separating herself from the sad spectacle
of her dead brothers than by the hope of saving
herself, she pursued her way in the forest, and
happily she was able to find some tinamou eggs
and wild fruits, which sufficed for her sustenance.
166 NOTES OF A BOTA Miss CHAP.
On the morning of the tenth day after the death of
her companions she arrived at the bank of the
river, just at the moment when two Indians were
embarking in a boat. These good people suc-
coured her and conducted her to Andoas, whence
she could continue her journey to La Laguna, and
from there descend into the valley of the Amazon
as far as Cayenne, where her husband was expect-
ing her. During the time that she had wandered
lost in the forest of Canelos, her hair had become
perfectly white; and to the end of her lite she
could never speak, nor even think, of those terrible
days without a shudder. Every time that the
author recalls the calamities with which this poor
lady was overwhelmed, he feels that his own
sufferings in the same region ‘were bun wmern
inconsiderable. |
But to treat now of the vegetation. He does not
think that he is mistaken when he claims for the
forest of Canelos the honour of being the richest
cryptogamic locality on the surface of the globe.
The trees even, in certain parts, seem to serve no
other purpose than to support ferns, mosses, and
lichens. The epiphytic ferns, which are the most
abundant, are principally Hymenophyllee and Poly-
podium (in the widest acceptation of the term).
Among the ferns growing upon the ground there
are some that attain a height which is almost
gigantic: they belong to. the. genera) ilarasce
Hypolepis, Litobrochia, etc.; but the really arbor-
escent species come behind those of Tarapoto in
variety. Among the mosses, the genera Hookeria
and Lepidopilum occupy the first place, and he was
able to enrich them with several new species.
XVIII CANELOS. TO BANOS 167
Among the species already known may be men-
tioned the fine flookerta pendula, discovered by
Humboldt and Bonpland in New Granada, and the
flemtiragis aurea (Lam.), Brid., which adorned the
trunks of trees with its great clusters. . . |
The most precious of the Hepatice are often, as
we know, very minute; in order to find them a
scrupulous search made without haste is necessary.
In spite of that, he found some novelties, and among
them an unpublished genus, the J/yrto-colea trrorata,
represented. on Plate xxii. of his book, which -is
perhaps the most interesting that he has ever found.
It was growing on bushes watered by the stream
of the Topo, and it is the only agreeable souvenir
Memprescrves oO! that river. . All the Hepatice
gathered in the valley of the Pastasa at a height
from 5500 down to 1000 feet, that is to say, from
the cataract of Agoyan downwards, belong to the
forest of Canelos, and, as will be seen from his
book, they are very numerous.
Bafios lies just at the foot of Mount Tungu-
ragua, and upon its wooded sides there was plenty
to occupy the author, but he did not cease thinking
of the beautiful ferns he had seen on the other side
of the Topo, and as soon as paper arrived from
Guayaquil he made preparations for again pene-
trating into the forest. With four cargueros, his
servant, and provisions for twelve days, he took the
Canelos road on the 6th of October. But the rains
had not yet abated on the eastern side of the Cor-
dillera, and when he arrived at the Topo he found
crossing impracticable. Two nights he waited on
epatice Amazonice et Andine :
1 Hepat A t Andine, 188
168 NOTES OF Av BO EFANIS® CHAP.
the banks; the day was stormy, but the second
night it did not rain, and he saw with joy on the
morning of the third day that the water had de-
creased. He made then no delay in having the
four bridges thrown across, and took care to make
them very solid, lashed together so as to make one
single continuous bridge, hoping to find it there on
his return. But although he remained only three
nights on the other side of the Topo, on returning
to the banks on the fourth day, towards sunset, the ~
bridge was there no longer, having been carried
away the previous night by terrible storms which
had lasted for twelve hours, inundating the tra-
vellers’ rancho and putting out their fire, so that
at daybreak they found themselves soaked with
wet, sitting upon their baggage, and with their
feet in water. Fortunately, during thetdayaere
Topo had sufficiently abated for them to discover
the tops of the rocks; so the bamboos were felled
and arranged upon the rocks, and they were able
to cross in the last rays of twilight. He learnt
when too late that it was only during the months
of December, January, and February that one
might hope to find the rivers of the forest of
Canelos low enough to be crossed easily and with-
out danger. But he was content to have been able
to devote an entire day to Mount Abitagua, besides
collecting interesting plants all along the road; and
he returned to Banos, having enriched his collec-
tion with a considerable number of very beautiful
specimens.
[Returning to the Journal, the following short
note on the few plants observed during his journey
may appropriately be given here :—]
XVIII CANELOS EO BANOS 169
NOTE ON THE VEGETATION OF THE MONTANA
OF CANELOS
The circumstances under which I travelled pre-
vented me paying any attention to the phanogamous
plants, nor did I throughout the journey see any
large tree in flower, save two or three times a
species of Laurel. After the first two days from
Canelos, I was much struck by the abundance and
variety of the ferns and mosses: every day I saw
ferns new to me. The scarcity of tree-ferns was
notable, since around Tarapoto, at the same alti-
tude, I had seen such abundance and variety of them.
Between Alapoto and Rio Verde I first came
on a tree-fern growing gregariously; it was a
species of Cyathea, with a stout trunk, and | cannot
distinguish it from a Tarapoto species.
Among the stemless species was a handsome
Marattia, and I was much struck by twining species
of several genera. In an excursion since made
(October) as far as Mount Abitagua, I have, how- .
ever, been able to gather several of these ferns.
Among the mosses what I most remarked was
the great abundance of Hookeriz, which was indeed
equally notable on the Upper Bombonasa.
fine=imost abundant. palm, as far as Mount
Abitagua, was /riartea ventricosa, and up to this
point extends the Wettinia, but west of the
Abitagua it entirely disappears.
In descending the western side of that mountain
I first saw the noble Wax palm, /vzartea andicita,
which is said to exist in some abundance on the
ridges running down south from_Llanganati. Be-
tween the Topo and Rio Verde there is a good
KO) NOTES OF A BOTANIST “caaeiaam
deal of a slender inclined Chouta (Euterpe), rarely
exceeding 15 feet, which affords a delicious palmito.
On the opposite side of the Pastasa, in this part,
rise steep hills clad to the very summit with /vzartea
ventricosa. {1 have nowhere seen so dense a palm-
vegetation, save in the Mauritia swamps of the
Amazon.
Among inundated rocks at the Topo, Puyu, etc.,
I noticed the same small bushy Cuphez as on
Bombonasa.
(Slee De IG DG
BOLANICAL EXCURSIONS AND ASCENTS IN THE
ECUADOREAN ANDES
(July 1, 1857, to December 31, 1858)
| WitH the exception of the first six months spent at
Bafios (and several shorter visits to it afterwards),
the town of Ambato was Spruce’s head-quarters
during his three years’ continuous exploration of
the Andes of Ecuador. During the year and a
half comprised in this chapter there is nothing in
the shape of a Journal, but the letters to his friends,
Messrs. Teasdale, Bentham, and Sir William
Hooker, furnish materials for a fairly complete
account of his life and work during this period.
His explorations covered a large extent of the
surrounding mountains and forests, and as he was
often away from Ambato for weeks or months at a
time, I shall now commence each chapter with the
fl“ 1ist of Botanical Excursions,” which is sufh-
ciently detailed to enable the reader, by the help of
the map, to follow his wanderings, and thus to
better understand the references he makes in the
letters to the places he has visited. It will be
seen that he made a stay of some weeks at Quito
in order to explore the neighbouring mountain
171
172 NOTES OFA BOT ANISs CHAP.
Pichincha; and also made several short visits to
Riobamba, where his fellow-botanist, Dr. James
Taylor, was then living. |
LIST OF BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS
BANOS
1857.
July 2-31. Collecting at and around Bafios, especially on
adjacent wooded slopes of the volcano Tungu-
ragua. Many fine ferns and mosses during this
and the following months.
Aug. 1-31. Around Bafos. Also excursion to Mount Guay-
rapata (on the way to Ambato), and to the lake
of Cotal6; and down the- Pastasa “as sam as
Antombos.
Sept. 1-30. On lower slopes of Tunguragua. On cliffs and
beaches of Pastasa, etc.
Oct. EXCURSION INTO THE FOREST OF CANELOS
6. From Banos to the farm of Antombos.
Rip To the Rio Verde.
8. To the beach of Mapoto, on the Pastasa.
i, mn: To the river Topo.
ome lo: Delayed by the swollen Topo.
mola he Across the Topo to the place called Terromotillo.
ees To Casha-urcu at western foot of Mount Abitagua.
Poke te Up Mount Abitagua and returned to Casha-urcu.
i TA Crossed the Topo.
om aa: To Mapoto.
Fy kO: To Rio Verde,
Sauget To Banos.
,, 18-31. At Banos and collecting in the district near it.
Nov. 1-30. Ascent of Tunguragua from the farm of Juivis,
along the course of the great lava stream of 1773.
Excursion to Mounts Guayrapata and Mulmiul,
and to the village of Huambato. Excursion down
the Pastasa to the cataract of Agoyan, to the Rio
Blanco, etc.
Dec. 1-31. Collecting around Banos. Ascent of Mount Tun-
guragua by way of the chacras of Pondda and the
forest beyond, where there are numerous tree-
ferns, palms, laurels) Weinmannias, etc., at a
. height of 8000 to 11,000 feet.
1858.
Jan. 1-15. About foot of Tunguragua, some fine trees.
XIX IN
1858.
Jan. 16-31.
Feb... 13.
March to.
April 20-
May 22.
9? 31.
Sept. 1-14.
» 15-17.
fire EeUnNDORRAN ANDES 1732
AMBATO
Removed to Ambato. Until end of the month
packing the Banos collections.
Excursion from Ambato to Riobamba to visit Dr.
Taylor, and thence to Penipe, Mount Paila-urcu,
the cataract Huandisagua on western side of
Tunguragua.
This excursion lasted from February 13 to March to.
(This and all future long excursions were made
on horseback. )
From this date until April 20 chiefly engaged in
examining and packing ferns, mosses, etc.
BaANos
From this date to May 22 at Banos, and excursions.
from thence down the Pastasa to Antombos and
the Rio Verde; also up Tunguragua by Juivis
and the Alisal, etc. (on the line of the eruption of
1773). Many fine ferns, Hepaticee, etc.
AMBATO
. At Ambato.
At Ambato, and excursions thence to Mount Guay-
rapata and to Tisaleo (and Mount Carguairazo),
chiefly in quest of mosses.
At Ambato. Excursion to the villages Quisapincha
and Pasa, and the neighbouring cool but wooded
valleys running down from the northern shoulder
of Chimborazo. Many fine mosses gathered
amidst fogs and rains.
Journey to Tacunga (on way to Quito).
Journey to Romenilo at foot of Mount Ruminahu.
Arrive at Quito.
Quito
Exploring the vicinity of Quito and slopes of
Pichincha up to 11,000 feet.
. These four days collecting at Nono, on the northern
declivity of Pichincha.
Until end of month preparing collections.
At and near Quito, including ascent of Pichincha by
the farm of Lloa.
Return journey to Ambato, by Machache and
Tacunga.
174 NOTES “OF A BOTANISi 3 CHAP.
1858. AMBATO
Sept. 18-22. Packing Quito collections.
an es: Ambato to Riobamba.
ie. 20: Riobamba to Cajabamba.
Gin 2O: Cajabamba to Pangor.
en BO: To a hill-top in forest of Pallatanga.
Ocu wa To village of Pallatanga.
ar algae Collecting around Pallatanga.
ee 2 34 From Pallatanga to forest below Pangor.
ae az To the Hacienda de las Monjas.
bere aGe Across the Paramo de Naba to Riobamba.
5, 16-20. At Riobamba.
arabs Return to Ambato by the Paramo de Sanancajas.
eu 22k Ambato.
ne ee To Patate and back to Ambato.
ste eso Back to Riobamba by way of the Paramo de
Sabanan.
2, RIOBAMBA
OL ome Collecting near Riobamba, at Guano, ete.
Nov. 1-8. Collecting near Riobamba.
» 9-14. At the farm of Titaicun on the slope of a ridge (not
rising to snow-line) above the village of Chambo.
25-30: At Riobamiba:
Dec. 1-2. Excursion to the Paramo del Puyal, a prolongation
of the southern shoulder of Chimborazo.
3-8. Collecting near Riobamba.
AT THE FARM OF TAMAUTE, AT THE CONFLUENCE OF THE
RIVERS GUANO AND CHAMBO
» 9-31. Excursions around Tamaute: On the banks of the
Chambo—on the salt-plain of Elen—to Guan-
ando—to the head of the river Guano (at the
foot of Chimborazo), etc.
[The following letter to Mr. Bentham, written
two months after his arrival at Bafios, gives an
interesting summary of the whole journey to that
place, with so many vivid personal touches that,
despite of some repetition, I will here give the
latter part of it. It also carries on the narrative to
a later period, and gives some account of the little-
«x IN THE ECUADOREAN ANDES 175
known village of Bafios, and of the surrounding
mountains, with their more interesting botanical
features. |
To Mr. George Bentham
BANOS, ECUADOR, Sefz. 1, 1857.
» Ihe last.part of the journey, namely, the over-
land part of it, was by far the worst.
Road there is none, but only the merest sem-
blance of a track, such as the tapir makes to its
feeding- and drinking-places; often carried along
the face of precipices, where had it not been for
projecting roots on which to lay hold, the passage
would have been impossible. No one ever opens
the road—no fallen trees have been cleared away
—no overhanging branches cut off. From Canelos
the rains set in with greater severity than ever—
the dripping forest, through which I had to push
my way, soaking my garments so that towards
evening my arms and shoulders were quite be-
numbed—and the mud, which even on the tops of
the hills was often over the knees—made our
progress very slow and painful.
The Indians were little accustomed to carry
burdens—some of them had never been out before
—and though I had made the loads as light as
possible, they grumbled much and often threatened
to leave me. I had brought from Tarapoto a trunk
full of paper for drying my plants, but when we
reached the Jibaro settlement, where unceasing
rains kept us three days, I found it absolutely
necessary to throw all the paper away if I did not
176 NOTES-“OF A -BOTANISa CHAP.
wish to be deserted by the Indians. . . . At length
we reached the cataracts of the Topo, which have to
be crossed by throwing over them four bamboo
bridges—from one side to rocks in the middle and
thence to the opposite side. As far as we could
see up and down it, it was one mass of foam,
with here and there black rocks standing out, and
so much swollen that one of the rocks used as a
support for the bridges was completely under
water. Here we waited two days and nights in the
vain expectation of seeing the waters subside;
and finding ourselves on the point to perish of
hunger, we with great risk threw bridges across
at a place some way higher up. One of the middle
bridges was so long (at least 4o feet), that the
three slender bamboos of which it consisted almost
broke under the weight of a man, even unloaded, ©
and it was found impossible to get my boxes across.
I crossed myself and got over my bed and a change
of clothes, and the last of my party had scarcely |
got over when the waters rose and swept the
bridge away. In three days more we reached
Banos, and my first care was to seek out and pay
fresh cargueros to fetch my baggage from the
Topo. Eleven days they waited ere the river
went down, and twice I had to send them out
supplies of provisions. My goods had been left
under a rude rancho, thatched with Anthurium
leaves (for there were no palms near); but when
the men found them the leaves had fallen on them
and there rotted; the leather coveriewe: ine
trunks was half rotten and full of maggots; yet
fortunately the contents were very slightly injured.
You can perhaps fancy my sorrowful position in
m=) IN THE ECUADOREAN ANDES 177
Bafios awaiting the fate of my goods. After so
long a voyage I was much fallen in flesh, and my
thin face nearly hidden by a beard of three months’
growth. The cold at Banos I found almost in-
sufferable — thermometer sometimes as low as
484° at daybreak, and at its maximum not passing
64 —rains still continuing. I was attacked by
catarrh, with a cough so violent as often to bring
up blood from both nose and mouth. Perhaps I
should never see again my books, journals, instru-
ments, my Peruvian mosses, and other things
which no money could replace—all perhaps rotting -
on the shores of the Topo. There was not a book
in all Bafios, save breviaries and “ doctrinas.”
The weather scarcely allowed me to get out, or
I might have put off sad thoughts by the sight of
new plants. I had no drying-paper, but I found
some coarse calico, and with this began to dry the
mosses and ferns I found on the dilapidated walls
of my garden. I had also to lay out the mosses
I had snatched up as we came along from Canelos,
and which by chance had been brought along with
my bed, and this occupation diverted my thoughts
from my painful situation. The Cryptogamic vege-
tation of some parts of the Montana of Canelos is
wonderful. There is one mountain, called Abitagua,
which though not more perhaps than 5000 feet
high, is continually enveloped in mists and rains.
The trees on it, even to the topmost leaves, are
so thickly encased in mosses that a recognisable
specimen of them would be scarcely procurable, if
indeed they ever flower, which must be very
rarely. I gathered a tuft of everything I saw in
fruit and stowed it ina pouch by my side. In the
VOL. II N
178 NOTES OF A BOTANIST eae.
evening I made them into bundles—putting alter-
nate layers of Musci and Hepaticz, and hung them
up to “smoke” through the night, along with my
soaked garments. Even gathered in this hasty
way, I have a great many fine things; of Hookeria
alone there seem to be not fewer than fifteen
species. I saw also great numbers of new ferns,
but could not take them, save two or three of the
minute ones that I had not seen elsewhere.
Having perforce to remain at Banos till my
goods were got out from the Topo, and finding it
favourably situated for exploring Mount Tungu-
ragua, which, like much ground in the neighbour-
hood, scarcely any botanist has visited, I determined
to make it my station for some months. It is a
poor little place, much subject to earthquakes and
violent winds, and not abundant in provisions.
Bread is brought from Ambato and other places
where the climate is more suitable for the growth
of wheat. Banos is some 5500 feet above the sea
according to my barometer. Its position much
reminds me of that of Argeélez in the Basses-
Pyrénees, though the valley is narrower and the
schistose grassy hills that bound it seem much
higher than those of Argélez. In the gorge of the
Pastasa we have still oranges and the sugar-cane,
and on the hills that rise from it barley, beans, and
potatoes. The volcanic cone of Tunguragua is
perhaps the highest in the world; it is quite
isolated from the rest of the Cordillera, and on its
eastern side is joined by a narrow col tor {he
wooded hills which subside into the great Amazonian
plain; taken from the valley of Banos, its height
cannot be much less than. 15,000 feet sii @aas
"WYSta oy} uo syqista ysnl weypy |
‘(OJVQUIY SpIVMO}) HIYON AHL Wows ‘vaNvVYNONAT—'Z ‘1g
pea IN THE BCUADOREAN ANDES 181
much more wood on it, at the same altitude, than
Chimborazo or Cotopaxi, or any other of the lofty
mountains I have seen. Its ascent begins from
my very door, but to get up to the snow-line and
make any collection there, would occupy at least
two or three days. When the rainy season, or, as
it is called here, “‘ tiempo de las nevadas,” is fairly
over, I hope to attack Tunguragua in earnest.
The snow has been very low down, even into the
forest, but is now beginning to subside. I was
at first much hindered in my operations for want of
paper—at Ambato I could get only white letter-
paper, very dear—but I have now, through Mr.
Mocatta’s kindness, got a stock of paper from
Guayaquil, and you may consider me in constant
work, though the rainy weather interferes rather
with collecting and drying. Ferns and mosses are
in full bloom and in great abundance—flowers still
rather scarce. It must be from having been so
long among lofty trees that all herbaceous vegeta-
tion has a weedy look to me, yet I have felt great
pleasure in renewing my acquaintance with several
European genera among the humble plants; such
are Ranunculus, Geranium, Alchemilla, Hypericum,
Cerastium, Stellaria, Silene, Cardamine, Centun-
culus, Tillzeaa, Hydrocotyle, Viola, Veronica, Vale-
riana, Medicago, Cytisus, and several others.
Species of these genera grow along with several
characteristic Peruvians—Fuchsias, Calceolarias,
and most abundant of all a pretty Labiate shrub
(Gardoquia sp.) with copious reddish tubiform
flowers. The arborescent vegetation, especially
towards its upper limit, is what most interests me;
but very few trees are in flower as yet, and amongst
182 NOTES OF A BOTANESS CHAP.
them only one European genus (Alnus). Amongst
the trees hitherto gathered, are an Erythrina, a
Pithecolobium, three Polygaleze (Monnine), a hex-
androus Myrtus, a Proteacea (Roupala, sp. n.), a
Verbenacea, a Petiveriacea, a Crateegus (or some-
thing nearly allied), etc. etc. A curious tree on
wooded hills, at 6000 to gooo feet, most resembles
Polemoniacez in its characters, but has nothing of
the habit of that order. I believe most of the trees
will be undescribed. A Rutaceous shrub with
long sarmentose pinnate branches, called Shangshi,
has the peculiarity that the petals, at first smaller
than the sepals, persist and become three times
larger, being at the time so much distended by a
dark purple fluid—the universal substitute for ink
at Bafos—as to simulate the valves of a berried
capsule. It is so abundant that it must surely
have been previously gathered, yet I can find no
description of it. Another sarmentose shrub,
growing some 15 feet high, is a species of Cremo-
lobus, which seems to me to have jas oee@ a
claim to be considered a Capparid as a Crucifer.
On mossy declivities about the base of Tunguragua
are several Ericeze, Vacciniacez, and small-flowered
Orchidee.
A fortnight ago I went to explore a wooded hill
called Guayra-pata (2.e. Windy Height) about 9000
feet high, a few hours farther up the Pastasa,
towards Chimborazo. I slept at a small hamlet
called Cotalé, 8000 feet high and terribly cold,
because situated on a plateau, exposed directly to
the winds that blow up the valley. At Cotalo
there is a small lake choked with weeds of the
same genera as I might have found in an English
eoeetIN LTHE ECUADOREAN ANDES 183
lake (Myriophyllum, Lemna, and _ Callitriche).
Guayrapata is almost as mossy as Abitagua, and
much more flowery.
[In a letter to his friend Mr. Teasdale, written
a few days later, there are some details which are
additional to those given to Mr. Bentham. After
describing the journey to Bafos in much the same
terms, he proceeds :— |
September 14, 1857.
Bafos is a poor little place of about a thousand
souls; and it takes its name from certain hot
springs that well out at the foot of a cataract of
very cold water, falling from an offshoot of Tungu-
ragua. The patron saint—‘‘ Nuestra Sefora de las
Aguas Santas”—is a very miraculous saint, and
“romeros” (z.¢. pilgrims) come to adore at her shrine
from far-away towns. In large troops they come—
bathe nine days in the hot wells, assist at nine
masses, rosarios, and processions, get drunk every
night of the nine—a// in honour of the virgin—and
then, after these ‘‘actas de devocion,” as: they are
called, return to their homes rejoicing, having
fulfilled some previously-made promise to the saint,
and feeling secure of her protection for the future.
Banos is nearly 6000 feet above the sea, and
nestles under Tunguragua in the gorge of the
Pastasa, where the deep narrow valley widens out
a little at the estuary of a small river (the Bacctn)
which rushes down from the volcano. In the
village we have oranges, bananas, and sugar-
cane, and on the hills close by barley, beans, and
potatoes. Wheat is grown farther up the Andes,
184 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
and bread is brought to Bafos from Ambato,
Pillaro, and other towns. It is rather dear, and
when I arrived from the forest—half-famished, and
my thin face nearly hidden under a beard of three
months’ growth—I could easily demolish sixpenny-
worth a day. Beef and mutton can mostly be had
at 23d. the pound. In fact, good solid eatables
are not scarce, and as my troubles had not taken
away my appetite, I assure you I have gone deep
into them. I have now got up my strength again,
and I don’t think I was ever so stout in my life as
I am at this moment. At first I suffered much
from the cold. Think of the thermometer 484° at
sunrise, when even at 70° on the Amazon I (and
everybody else) used to shiver with cold; but I
am gradually becoming inured to it.
We are still (September 14) in the “tiempo de
las nevadas”—the snowy time on the summits of
the Eastern Cordillera—and the snow has been
very low down, even into the forests on the flanks
of Tunguragua. :
Earthquakes begin to find a place in my Journal.
We had.one here on the 7th of August, a fittle
before seven in the morning. I was sipping my
chocolate when it came on—at first with a gentle
undulatory movement, then with a brisk shaking, and
then gradually subsiding, its whole duration being
about three-quarters of a minute. I was trying to
ascertain its direction and the number of vibrations
per second (about four), when a piece of plaster fell
from the wall at my back, whereat I snatched up
my chocolate and walked to the door, thinking it
quite as safe to continue my observations outside.
Whilst the shock lasted, the ground, the trees,
me IN THE ECUADOREAN ANDES 185
and the houses oscillated to and fro, in a way to
quite upset one’s notions of the earth’s stability.
I cannot walk abroad in any direction without
seeing evidence of former earthquakes, far more
violent than this one, and some of them of not very
ancient date.
A short time after this earthquake, I was talking
about it to a neighbour, when he remarked, “ It is
seven years ago since we had an earthquake that
did any damage, and then only a single house was
destroyed, and it stood exactly where yours does,
which was built on its ruins.” This was startling,
but I was reassured when I learnt that the house
overthrown was built of adobes, and therefore
easily thrown down, whereas the new one was of
wooden pillars and wattles, the interspace being
filled with earth, and both inside and outside
plastered and whitewashed; and that the pillars,
being of ‘‘helechos” (trunks of tree-ferns), were
so tough as to sway backwards and forwards
without ever breaking. All the other houses in
the village had the uprights also of tree-fern.
(On January 16, 13853, Spruce removed tothe
town of Ambato, situated on the highroad from
Guayaquil to Quito, and about midway between
the two cities. This town continued to be his
head-quarters for two and half years, when he finally
quitted the higher Andes.
A series of extracts (made by Spruce himself)
from letters to his friend Teasdale carry on the
narrative of his more general observations and
experiences during the year 1858. In this period
he visited Riobamba and Quito, as well as Bajos,
several times, and made numerous excursions to
186 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. XIX
the mountains and valley around, as noted in his
“List of Excursions” given at the beginning of
this chapter. The letters to Mr. Bentham and
Sir William Hooker treat chiefly of botanical and
other matters connected with his scientific work,
and these are arranged in order of date so as to
form as far as possible a consecutive narrative. |
Lo Mr. John Teasdale
AMBATO, NEAR QUITO, March 13, 1858.
.. . I came hither from Banos two months ago.
My labours there were brought to an abrupt
termination in consequence of having filled all my
paper and the non-arrival of a further supply I had
sent for to Guayaquil. Ambato is conveniently
situated for communicating both with the coast and
the capital; but the low grounds at the western
foot of the Andes are now inundated, and the road
will not be passable for beasts of burden until July,
up to which time Ambato will be my head-quarters.
As soon as I shall have dispatched my collections
to the coast I shall probably move on to Quito ;
for, although Ambato is the prettiest town in
Ecuador, and the most abundantly supplied with
all sorts of provisions, it is a miserable place for a
botanist. It stands on a plateau, half-way down the
slope of a deep narrow valley, at the bottom of
which runs the river Ambato, a _ considerable
stream, coming from Chimborazo. ~ There, tae
broad green band of gardens, orchards, and plots
of lucerne on each side of the river, but outside the
valley the eye rests on little else than hills and
rolling plains of sand; streaked here and there
‘Q0URISIP UI OZLIOqUITYD puv OZLITENSILD
“SNAGUV®) ONIGNONOWWIAS AHL WOW ‘OLVEANY—'8 “OI
eee IN THE ECUADOREAN ANDES 180
with long lines of Cactus and American Aloe, the
fences of the country, against which the wind piles
up the sand like snow-drifts. It is true that most
of this sandy country produces scanty crops of
barley, peas, and lupines, and that, where it is
accessible to irrigation, it is rendered even very
fertile; but at a distance it often looks quite naked.
On account of the sand, and of the violent wind
that gets up as the sun approaches mid-heaven, it
is only in the early morning one can go out on foot,
and then not with much pleasure, for although
Ambato has such a coquettish appearance, and has
been built entirely anew since the great earthquake
of 1797, notions of cleanliness are so lax that it is
necessary to proceed with cautious steps and slow
to avoid the ‘“‘ quisquilia” that are copiously strewn
about and salute the olfactory organs with an
odour by no means “sweeter than smell of sweetest
fennel” (vide Paradise Lost). At early dawn it is
difficult to avoid stumbling over the “bodies”
squatting down at the street sides, and even in the
principal square, like so many toads, and it is not
uncommon for a decent-looking woman in that
position to look up in your face as you pass her
and give you the ‘‘ Buenos dias, Sefior!” with an
air of the most unconscious innocence. At 10
o'clock —or sometimes not until noon — the wind
gets up from its sleep, and from that time till about
sunset blows over these high bleak grounds with
the fury of a hurricane, raising up the fine sand,
which obscures the landscape as it were with
volumes of mist, and penetrates the narrowest
chinks in doors and windows. Few people, except
the native Indians, stir beyond the precincts of the
I9O NOTES OF ~ BOTAN = CHAP.
town on foot; and it is customary for both men
and women, when riding on horseback, to protect
the face by a gauze veil- from the) jeand= aime
scorching sun, and the cold piercing wind. After
being exposed for some hours to this adverse com-
bination without such protection, the eyes become
bloodshot, the skin peels off the face, and the
nose becomes red and swollen, in which state it
is emphatically styled a ‘‘nariz tostada” (toasted
nose). I suppose I may have cast the skin of my
nose not fewer than ten times since iicame to
Ambato, From this brief sketch of) the ‘elmmare
you will not be surprisedto hear thatvacute
catarrhal complaints, influenza, spitting of blood,
etc., are frequent; but they are very ieares geal,
and I have not yet seen a single case of pulmonary
consumption ; and the climate on the whole must
be considered conducive to longevity. A country-
man of ours, Dr. Jervis, nephew of the frsiyeadl
St. Vincent, died two or three years ago at Cuenca,
at the age of a hundred and fifteen’; As@mestacc
used here only for cooking, the natives have no
calefacients beyond food, clothing, and solar heat,
and the latter is often considerable, although the
thermometer in the shade scarcely ever passes 65°.
Very old people are sometimes put into a basket of
cotton and set in the sun, with a wide-brimmed hat >
on their head. Then they remind me of newly-
hatched goslings I have seen similarly treated.
It is but two days since I returned from Rio-
bamba, about 40 miles away to the south, where
I remained about four weeks, on a visit to my
countryman Dr. James Taylor, who has been in
cee Tiik BECUADOREAN ANDES tort
South America near upon thirty years. He was
formerly medical attendant to ex-President Flores,
and lecturer on Anatomy in the University of
Quito; but he married several years ago a young
Peruvian in Cuenca, the widow of one of Bolivar’s
generals, and he has since then resided in Cuenca
and Riobamba. He has but one child living—
a boy of about fifteen. Dr. Taylor is a native of
Cumberland, and has had a good education when
young; he has still Greek enough to read and
enjoy Anacreon; and what is much better, he is a
very kind-hearted, honourable man, which can’t be
said of many Englishmen I have met in South
America.
Itound it a rather fatiguing days ride to
Riobamba. Instead of starting at five in the morning,
as we ought to have done, it was ten when we got off,
in consequence of a delay in bringing in the horses.
The first 17 miles was mostly over loose sand,
where the horses sometimes sank to the knees.
This brought us to Mocha, a small village, some
1500 feet higher up than Ambato, and with a very
chilly climate. The chief industry of its scanty
population is the keeping of horses and mules for
hire to Quito and Guayaquil. From Mocha there
is a steep descent to a stream, and then we begin
to reascend towards Chimborazo. The ground
becomes firmer, and grassy, and at about two-thirds
of the ascent a road branches off to the right,
which leads to Guayaquil. It crosses the southern
shoulder of Chimborazo, at a height of over 14,000
feet. We keep straight on; and up, up, up, till we
come out on an elevated grassy plain (the Paramo
192 NOTES OF A BOTANIST #2
de Sanancajas), which stretches along the eastern
base of the mountain for about 8 miles, and at a
height of 11,000 to 12,000 feet. Here the icy cope
of Chimborazo seemed so near that one might have
touched it by stretching out the hand—an illusion
caused by the transparency of the atmosphere.
The temperature was pleasant, for the bright sun
tempered the cool breeze, and there was no sand.
But as I returned, a few weeks afterwards, |
crossed the paramo in a piercingly cold misty
rain, and when I reached Mocha I scarcely knew
whether I had any hands or feet. If you have
been up Teesdale as far as the Weel, you have
seen in that chilly treeless solitude something very
like the paramos of the Andes. The Weel itself
is not unlike the small lagoons scattered about in
hollows on Sanancajas. They are often to be
seen covered with small wild-ducks that no one
cares to disturb. Herds of shaggy wild cattle
roam over the paramo, and pick up a scanty sub-
sistence from the sedgy herbage.
You may have read of the paraméro—the
deadly-cold wind, charged with frost, that some-
times blows over the paramos, and withers every
living thing it meets. <A person has told me that
when a boy he was once crossing the highest point
of Sanancajas, towards Guayaquil, along with his
father, when they saw a man sitting by the wayside
and apparently grinning at them with all his might.
“See,” said the boy, ‘“‘ how that man is laughing at
us!” ‘Silence,.my son,” replied the fatten ox
say a prayer for the repose of his soul—the man
is dead!”
I have had to face a paraméro, but never of this
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ex. ax IN THE ECUADOREAN ANDES 1095
intense kind. Its approach is indicated by the
wind beginning to whistle shrilly in the distance
among the dead grass-stalks. When he hears that
ominous sound, the horseman takes a pull at his
flask, draws his wraps close around him, and his
hat down over his eyes; and his horse too seems
to nerve himself for the encounter of the withering
blast—carries his head low, and throws forward
his shaggy mane.’ It seems to be the first shock
of the cold blast that kills. If a man can sustain
it unscathed, he generally escapes with his life.
Horses are much more rarely frozen to death than
men. Indeed, the amount of cold and wet these
mountain horses will bear is surprising; but they
are to the manner born, and have never known
the luxury of sleeping under cover.
Oe descent from the southern side of the
paramo of Sanancajas is along a ravine, worn deep
into the black turfy soil and subjacent volcanic
alluvium by the rains and melting snows from
Chimborazo. One of my two horses carried my
trunks, and got along so slowly that night closed
over us as we reached San Andres, a village nearly
9 miles from Riobamba. We would fain have
remained there for the night, but there had been a
bull-fight that day in the plaza, and the houses were
so thronged with noisy, drunken men, that we saw
1 T have been reminded by this sound on the paramos of the Andes of our
bleak Yorkshire moors and moor-pastures, where the wintry wind whistles
through the ‘‘ windlestraws”’—the dead flower-stalks of Bent-grass and Dog’s-
tail grass (Avrostts cantina and Cynosurus cristatus). In the Pyrénées, the
strings of Eolus’s harp are the slender stalks and rigid pungent leaves of
Festuca Eskia—the ‘‘Esquisse” of the shepherds—which grows on bleak
mountain sides at great elevations. In the Andes the whistling grasses are
chiefly Festuca Tolucenses and Stipa Javava, whose thread-like leaves and
stalks are most apt for the wind to play upon.
196 7 NOTES OF A BOTANISE CHAP. XIX
no chance of obtaining a supper and a bed, and
we had no alternative but to hold on our way to
Riobamba. Having crossed the plaza, we entered a
dark narrow street, some way down which we heard
several men uttering angry shouts. On nearing
them, my horse reared straight up against the
wall—alarmed at the sight of the dead bull the
men were dragging along, and which the gloom
had hindered me from seeing. 1 g@ayveltaiingere
lash and he cleared the obstruction at a bound,
but his rider narrowly escaped being spilt. Beyond
San Andres we had stony descents and ascents;
a drizzling rain came on, which made the night
more dark, and we had to leave it entirely to the
horses to pick out the way. As I returned by the
same route, with daylight, I was horrified to see
that for a space of nearly two miles we had skirted
the edge of a precipice, where a singleMiaisescrap
would have hurled us to destruction.
Riobamba has about as many inhabitants as
Ambato (8000), but it covers more ground, because
the streets are wider; and it is less neatly) pulls
It is of equally modern date, and stands three
leagues away to eastward of the ruins of ancient
Riobamba (overthrown in 1797)—in the midst of
a flat sandy desert, where the winds have full play,
and raise up whirls of sand that look at a distance
like waterspouts at sea. An open aqueduct from
the paramos of Chimborazo, 15 miles away, supplies
the town with water, which by the time it reaches
Riobamba has got so fouled as to be undrinkable
until it has been passed through a filtering-jar
(called an ‘“‘estiladera”) that answers its object
admirably.
‘uorjdnia ut AeSueG =‘“VAATTIGYOD NUILSVA AHL GNV VAWNVAOIY—-"Ol “OI
fee IN PRE ECUADOREAN ANDES tIo9
It is a striking sight to look over the great
square at Riobamba on a market-day, and see it
crowded with Indians and rustics in dresses of the
gayest colours; while the shops that surround the
square have their glittering and gaudy wares hung
outside, or spread out on mats on the wide pave-
ment; and at the back, Chimborazo towers high
into the sky—its snow shining in the sun like
polished silver—and seems to touch the very
houses of the town at its base, although half a day’s
journey away.
Several snowy peaks, besides Chimborazo, are
visible from Riobamba, the chief being EI Altar,
La Candelaria, Sangay, and Tunguragua. The last |
call wy mountain, because I explored its flanks for
seven months, from Banos. I made a desperate
attempt to get in at the south-western side of it,
from Riobamba, and devoted several days to it, but
paid dearly for my presumption. My aim was to
ascend by a magnificent cataract, called Guandisagua,
which comes out from under the snowy cope of
Tunguragua, and falls at three leaps into the warm
valley of Capil, where flourish Seville oranges,
alligator-pears, and sugar-cane—a total height of
‘some 8000 feet (15,700-7500). What with alter-
nately wading in the cold snow-water and climbing
up cliffs under a hot sun, I had to keep my bed for
four days afterwards, with rheumatic pains from
head to foot.
f ) met with agreeable society in Ambato
which I had not reckoned on. The Hon. Philo
White, American Minister to Ecuador, resides here,
with his wife, nine months in the year. They
find the climate suits them better than that of
200 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP? Sax
Quito, where they are obliged to be during the
three months the Congress is sitting. Mr. White
is a man of middle age. In his younger days he
has been United States Consul at Hamburg and
other ports in the north of Europe, and he has
travelled also in England and France. Afterwards
he was for some years Navy Agent on the coast of
Peru and Chile; so that he is a man with smere
cosmopolitan sympathies and fewer local prejudices
than many of his countrymen. Like many diplo-
matic gentlemen, he is apt to run into long-winded
dissertations, not remarkable for either depth or
brilliancy ; -and, at the sameé< time, heme aajee
amiable, sound-hearted man. Mrs. White isa very
friendly, chatty lady, who gets all her dresses out
from New York, in the latest style of fashion, to
the admiration and envy of the belles of Ambato.
I often step into Mr. White’s of an evening, just
as I used to do into yours, when in England. We
have, however, no chess-playing, and, instead, we
rail against the people of the country—after the
fashion of foreigners in all countries—and [I listen
patiently to Mr. White's lectures on 2politieal
aspects and complications.
Lo Mr. George Bentham
AMBATO, March 165) 18.5.8:
As I mentioned in my last letter, my labours at
Banos were terminated sooner than I wished in
consequence of having filled all my paper; and this
was the more provoking because just at that time
there were more trees in flower than at any other.
‘VEONVAOIN VVAN WOW ‘OZVUIVADUVD GQNV OZVUYOIWIHD—'II “OI
”
foe IN THE ECUADOREAN ANDES 203
In my last excursion to Tunguragua I was obliged
to leave several things because I had no paper to
put them in. I have just returned from Riobamba,
after a stay there of nearly a month with Dr. Taylor.
Like Ambato, it stands in the midst of sandy deserts
where hardly any vegetation is visible save the
fences of Agave and Cactus and the common weeds
that grow in their shelter. I made a desperate
attempt to get in at the southern side of Tunguragua,
where there is a magnificent waterfall (Huandis-
agua) which comes down from the very snow at three
leaps into the warm valley of Capil—full 8000 feet ;
for this purpose I moved to Penipe, about four
leagues east of Riobamba, and from thence reached
the cataract in an excursion of fourteen hours. But
what with alternately wading in the cold snow-
water and climbing up cliffs in a burning sun, |
was confined to bed for four days afterwards with
fever and rheumatic pains from head to foot. The
worst was that, so dried up was the forest with the
protracted summer, I did not get a single plant
in good state. The weather is still dry, and until
the rains come there will be no herborising ; but |
am occupied in arranging and packing my Banos
collections, which I hope to dispatch to Guayaquil
ie fone. In May I ought to revisit Bafios to
procure plants of two fine Orchises I found on
Tunguragua.
I should be very glad to return to England, as
you recommend me, to distribute my mosses, but I
am fearful of again falling into delicate health if I
go there. I have, besides, no funds beyond what
are in your hands; these would soon be exhausted,
and poverty is such a positive crime in England,
204 NOTES OF “As BOTAN CHAP.
that to be there without either money or lucrative
employment is a contingency not to be reflected on
without dread. On the other hand, I already feel
myself unequal to the painful mountain ascents,
exposed at the same time to a burning sun-and a
piercingly cold wind. The eastern slopes of the
Andes no doubt contain much fine ground, but for
want of roads they can scarcely be explored, except
by one to whom the pecuniary value of his collec-
tions would be no object, and who could go to any
amount of expense. I have often wished | could
get some consular appointment here, were it only
of £150 a year; but I have no powerful friends,
without which a familiarity with the country, the
inhabitants, and the languages go for little. A
person is much wanted to watch over the interests
of Europeans on the Upper Amazon, but I can
hardly suggest a station for him which would not
be liable to some objection, and an itinerating consul
. is something I have never heard of, though it would
really be very useful here. The Brazilians have a
vice-consul in Moyobamba. The French have a
vice-consul in Santarem and another in the Barra
do Rio Negro.
Lo Sir Wiliam Hooker
AMBATO, March 24, 1858.
... Several friendly letters have passed between
Dr. Jameson and myself, but I have not yet had the
pleasure of meeting him. The upper part of the
Rio Napo (where is the Indian village of Archi-
dona), which Jameson has lately explored, is nearly
parallel to the upper part of the Pastasa (and at no
fee TE ECUADOREAN ANDES 205
great distance from it), which has been my hunting-
ground for the last seven months. ‘Though so
near, it would seem that a great proportion of the
plants are distinct.
At the ‘foot of Tunguragua, in dripping situations, I found a
small Polypodium creeping on branches which has the fronds
deeply sinuated so as to resemble a narrow oak-leaf. All the
fronds are fertile, and I take it to be nothing more than a variety
of a Marginaria with linear lanceolate fronds that grows near.
A short time ago I found in a strip of forest by the Pastasa,
about ro miles below Banos, a very strange little fern with com-
pound fleshy fronds, looking not unlike one of the small Asplenia,
but completely different from that genus and its allies. ‘The sori,
immersed in the margin of the frond, recall those of some
Davalliz, in which genus, however, the structure of the receptacles
seems essentially distinct. JI enclose a small specimen, and if the
fern be really new and you would like to describe it, I will send
you the largest plant I have, which is about three times the size
of this one. Unfortunately, I could find the fern on only a single
tree, though I spent two hours in searching the neighbouring
trees, and my stock of it is rather small.
From my letters to Mr. Bentham you will have learnt how
much I suffered in the Montana of Canelos, on my way hither.
This name is popularly given to the forest from near Banos, where
the natural pastures begin, at the actual foot of the Cordillera, to
Canelos on the Bombonasa. It is the finest ground for Crypto-
gamia I have ever seen, but when I passed through it with
Indians I was obliged to lighten my cargoes by giving and throw-
ing away whatever I could best spare, so that I could bring no
plants along save a few mosses. . . . One striking feature among
the ferns was the number of sarmentose, or even actually climb-
ing, species of various genera. On the Bombonasa a true Sela-
@inella climbs into the trees to the height of 30 feet, and the
twining caudex sends off fronds 4 feet long; in some places it
forms impenetrable thickets. A handsome Marattia was a great
acquisition to me, as I had not previously seen that genus grow-
ing. ‘Two small Asplenia, looking quite like Hymenophylla, crept
along the branches of shrubs by shady rivulets. But the most
remarkable plant in the forest of Canelos is a gigantic Equisetum,
20 feet high, and the stem nearly as thick as the wrist! ... It
extends for a distance of a mile on a plain bordering the Pastasa,
but elevated some 200 feet above it, where at every few steps one
1 It is Davallia Lindent, Hook. Sp., Fil. 1, p. 193, and has been found at
Caraccas and also in the Organ Mountains of Brazil.
206 NOTES OF - A BOPANISSE CHAP.
sinks over the knees in black, white, and red mud. <A wood of
young larches may give you an idea of its appearance. I have
never seen anything which so much astonished me. I could
almost fancy myself in some primeval forest of Calamites, and if
some gigantic Saurian had suddenly appeared, crushing its way
among the succulent stems, my surprise could hardly have been
increased. I could find no fruit, so that whether it be terminal,
as in &. giganteum, or radical, as in £. fluviatile, is still doubtful,
and for this reason I took no specimens at the time, though I
shall make a point of gathering it in any state.
Mount Tunguragua is nearly as fine a locality for ferns as the
forest of Canelos, but great difficulties attend its ascent. First,
there is the actual height, for Banos is but 5500 feet high, and
from thence to the snow-line (15,000 feet) is a great way to climb.
Then there is the want of water, for between Banos and Puela,
that is, for about five leagues along the northern base of the
mountain, all the ravines are dry. The streams that formerly
traversed them all became submerged when the great earthquake
of 1797 took place, and-now run in subterranean courses, coming
out on the actual margin of the Pastasa, sometimes in consider-
able volume. But the greatest obstruction to the ascent is the
dense, untracked, quasi-Amazonian forest, to penetrate which the
knife is needed at every step, and which extends to a height that
I have not yet exactly ascertained. I could not have believed,
unless I had seen it, that at 11,000 feet elevation on Tunguragua
there are laurels 70 feet high and 12 feet round.
I trust my collections will not disappoint your expectations ;
they do not, however, quite come up to mine, for I have suffered
much here from the cold, and especially from the sudden alter-
nations of burning heat to frosty cold, and I have consequently
been unable to do so much field-work as I could wish. Since
entering the Ecuador I have gathered forty-five species of Poly-
podium (including Goniophlebium, etc.), all, with two or three
exceptions, different from what I gathered in Peru. They include
some very pretty things, especially in Polypodium proper. I have
also some pretty Asplenia; but the species of this genus and
Diplazium give me more difficulty than any other—to know what
are species and what varieties.
[The next letter to Mr. Bentham) icemeamre
among other valuable botanical matter, an exceed-
ingly interesting estimate of the probable number
of species of plants now living in the great Amazon
valley, founded on his own observations. It is
eae Tie ECUADOREAN ANDES 207
far beyond what other botanists have supposed to
be likely, but no one had ever before given the
same close attention to the species of forest-trees
over so large an area as Spruce had done. |
To Mr. George Bentham
AMBATO, June 22, 1858.
I have just completed packing up three cases of
plants to be dispatched to you... .
There are a few specimens of a Balanophorea which I have
included in the general collection, and a single specimen (being
all I could find) of a plant allied to Rafflesiaceze, which please
give to Dr. Hooker. The latter grew on the root of a tree in the
forest on Mount Tunguragua; when fresh the involucre was dull
purple and the florets violet-—it has shrunk about half in drying.
I only guess at its affinities, for I did not wish to injure the specimen
by examining it.
The Phanerogamic collection is not so interesting as I could
wish. As I mentioned in a previous letter, I was prevented from
gathering many interesting trees about Banos by having filled all
my paper. I have lately revisited Bahos and spent a month
there, but the weather was very gloomy and rainy, and there were
scarcely any flowers. In consequence of this I found it impracti-
cable to procure plants of the fine Orchids I have found on Tungu-
ragua. Nor did I find a single moss that I had not gathered
during my previous residence there—so eagerly, it seems, I had
searched for them—though I got twenty-one ferns and a few
Hepaticz which had previously escaped me.
What a fine chance there is now for your friend
Dr. Caapanema, or for any other wealthy and
scientific Brazilian not afraid of heat, rains, and
mosquitoes, to explore the Amazon and its tribu-
taries in a small steamer, where everything neces-
sary could be carried, and their collections preserved
and stowed away |!
I have lately been calculating the number of
208 NOTES OF A BOTANIS# CHAP.
species that yet remain to be discovered in the
great Amazonian forest, from the cataracts of the
Orinoco to the mountains of Matto Grosso; taking
the fact that by moving away a degree of latitude
or longitude I found about half the plants different
as a basis, and considering what very narrow strips
have up to this day been actually explored, and
that often very inadequately, by Humboldt, Martius,
myself, and others, there should still remain some
50,000 or even 80,000 species undiscovered. To
any one but me and yourself this estimation will
appear most extravagant, for even Martius (if I recol-
lect rightly) emits an opinion that the forests of
the Amazon contain but few species. But allowing
even a greater repetition of species tiaany 1 mave
ever encountered, there cannot remain less than
at least half of the above number of species yet to
be discovered.
At the highest point I reached on the Uaupés,
the Jaguaraté caxoeira, | spent about a fortnight,
in the midst of heavy rains, when (according to my
constant experience) very few forest trees open
their fiowers. But when the time came for my
return to Panure (for I had to: give upithe peat
and Indians by a certain day) the weather cleared
up, and as we shot down among the rocks which
there obstruct the course of the river, on a sunny
morning, I well recollect how the banks of the river
had become clad with flowers, as it were by some
sudden magic, and how I said to myself, as I scanned
the lofty trees with wistful and disappointed eyes,
“There goes a new Dipteryx—there goes a new
Qualea—there goes a new ‘the Lord knows.
what’!” until I could no longer bear the sight, and
fee IN THE ECUADOREAN ANDES 209
covering up my face with my hands, I resigned my-
self to the sorrowful reflection that [ must leave all
these fine things “to waste their sweetness on the
desert air.” From that point upwards one may
safely assume that nearly everything was new,
and I have no doubt that the tract of country lying
eastward from Pasto and Popayan, where are the
head-waters of the Japura, Uaupés, and Guaviare—
probably nearly conterminous—offers as rich a
field for a botanist as anyin South America. But
I have made inquiries as to the possibility of reach-
ing it, and I find that it will be necessary to cross
paramos of the most rugged and inhospitable char-
acter, and afterwards risk oneself among wild and
fierce Indians, so that I fear its exploration must
be left to some one younger and more vigorous
than myself.
If I remain in this country and do not make
Quito my head-quarters, I suppose I must go to
Loja, where the climate is more temperate and the
flora no doubt magnificent. People who travel
that way all speak with admiration of the abundance
and beauty of the flowers.’
To Sir Wilham Hooker
OUIno; Ave, 15, 13815 3.
The house in which I reside is on the very slope
of Pichincha, and is actually the last house in Quito,
! The route along the Cordillera to Loja is now little traversed, and is very
difficult and expensive. The so-cailed ‘‘road” has no mending (or marring)
save what it gets from the rains and the hoofs of the mules. There is, in fact,
not a single road in the Ecuador.
VOL, 1 P
210 NOTES OF A BOPTANIS® CHAP.
ascending by the stream which runs through the
city. Jameson’s house is about 150 yards lower
down, and poor Hall lived on the opposite side of
the stream. Dr. Jameson is, however, at the present
moment in Guayaquil. ... I had the pleasure of
spending a day with him in Ambato, on his way
down. He is a tall ruddy Scot, and although on
the shady side of sixty years, may very well reach
a hundred and fifty, for he shows no signs} of age
yet. People who are naturally robust and live
temperately do reach very advanced age in these
mountains. Our countryman Dr. Jervis died lately
at Cuenca, aged a hundred and fifteen years; and
here is Mr. Cope, turned of eighty-five, trotting
about as nimbly as a young man. .
The weather is extraordinarily dry just now, for Quito, and
vegetation is much burnt up. Before I put myself in the doctor’s
hands I contrived to scramble some way up Pichincha, and to
gather a few mosses; although I had already gathered the
greater part of what it produces in other parts of the Cordillera.
In my garden I have Brachymenium Jamesont, Tayl., Tortula
denticulata, Mitt., and some cther mosses, and there are many
more pretty things by the stream close at hand. When I came
out on the Cordillera last year, one of the first mosses I recog-
nised was the curious Orthotricheid moss, S¢veptopogon erythro-
dontus, Wils., which grows perched on twigs in bushy places, just
as Orthotrichum affint and striatum do in England. Another
of my first findings was your Dzdymodon gracilis, Bridel.
Grimmia longirostris, Hook., I have gathered abundantly on
Chimborazo, the original locality. I have little difficulty in recog-
nising your and Humboldt’s mosses, but many of Taylor’s I
cannot satisfactorily identify. Besides the incomplete analysis,
there is a laxness in the use of terms relating to form in his de-
scriptions which makes me almost in every case feel uncertain
whether I have got his plant or not. I have three claimants for
his ickera gracillima (Pichincha), and as I find that only one of
them grows on Pichincha, I have no doubt of its being the species
intended, though it is the one least like his description of the
threes: 4
I am glad that Mr. Mitten is working up the Indian mosses,
as I hope we shall thus be able to ascertain whether it be really
meee LEE BCUADOREAN ANDES a11
the fact that, while so many South American Hepaticze are iden-
tical with Indian species, scarcely any mosses are. I feel sure I
have many European species among my Andine collections. I
was surprised to see on Chimborazo dense tufts of Aypnum
Schrebert growing among the heather just as they do in England.
To Myr. George Bentham
Oumos A772. 17, 155.0.
I have lately had the pleasure of receiving your
letter of June 1, containing the names of my Vene- —
zuelan plants. My notes on these are in Ambato ;
el cecognise the greater part of them... .
Nearly every plant I gathered at the highest point
of the Guainia which I explored proves to be new;
and this increases my regret that I could not, on
account of illness, follow out my original project
of ascending that river as far as the cataracts. . .
i have a new genus allied to Henriquezia in the
forest of Canelos, but when I shall be able to go
and gather it I cannot tell. It is an immense tree,
with leaves three together, and with large yellow
Howers 6 inches long—five equal stamens—but a
much longer corolla-tube than Henriquezia.
I am satisfied to find that the small collection
from Maypures has arrived in an identifiable state.
When I opened it out at San Fernando, after my
long illness, both plants and paper were one mass
of mould. By little and little, as my trembling
hands and dim eyes allowed me, J] brushed away
the mould and transferred the plants to other paper.
When I reached San Carlos the process had to be
renewed, so that I had reasonable doubts of their
preserving any of their original semblance when
they reached England.
212 NOTES OF A BOPANISS CHAP.
Whatever steps you think necessary to take for
lessening your labour in the distribution of my
plants will meet my cheerful acquiescence:
am deeply thankful to you for having bestowed so
much of your valuable time on my plants; but, on
my part, I can truly say that I have had no greater
stimulus in collecting than to think, whenever |
have gathered a new or strange plant, “ This will
surely please Mr. Bentham.”
I wrote to you in June last, on the occasion of
dispatching to you three cases of plants from
Zin ait Ose ve
I am sorry the collection does not contain more
trees; but the number of species of trees is actually
much fewer in cold regions than in warm, and I
miss much here the excellent climbers (Indians, I
mean, not lianas) I used to have on the Uaupes and
Rio Negro. However, if I remain in the country,
not many of the trees shall escape me. There are
a great many arborescent Composite, of which I
have as yet taken very few—do you think I ought
to gather them all?
My object in visiting Quito was partly to get
my few books bound and a few clothes made, for
in so many years in the forest all I had with me
had got into a very dilapidated state; as also to
get such substitutes as I could for the warm under-
clothing sent out by yourself and Mr. Pritchett and
‘lost on the way. I hope also to herborise a little
on the western side of the Cordillera, but I have
been seriously ill, and am still in so much pain
that I cannot write for more than a few minutes
together.
foe N THE ECUADOREAN ANDES 213
RIOBAMBA, JVov. 2,.1858.
meeeeoimce 1 last wrote to you 1 have several
times done the 4o miles from Ambato to Riobamba
in one day, and the distance begins to seem much less
than at first. But my back is just now aching con-
siderably from having ridden 112 miles in three
days, for the most part along steep and dangerous
declivities. I left Quito in September and came
straight on to Riobamba, and then 60 miles farther,
in a south-westerly direction, crossing the summit
of the Cordillera at an elevation of 12,500 feet, and
then descending to the valley of Pallatanga at 5000
be beoo tect. Jhis pass, called the Paramo de
Naba, is far lower than that over the shoulder of
Chimborazo (14,000 feet) on the way from Quito
and Ambato to Guayaquil. I scarcely suffered
from the cold on Naba, although I was buffeted
by a hail-storm; and I gathered there some very
interesting plants, including the beautiful Gextzana
cernua found by Humboldt and Bonpland on Chim-
Boraze, [t is great pity that these fine Andine
Gentians have proved so difficult to cultivate in
England. Anderson, the famous nurseryman of
Edinburgh, has succeeded in raising a great many
plants of the Andes, from seeds sent to him by
Professor Jameson of Quito, but I am told that
none of the Gentians have survived. It is difficult
to imitate the conditions of their growth; for some
of them endure frost nearly every night of their
lives, yet so light is the pressure of air upon them
that the frost injures them not; yet they die when
frozen in the dense atmosphere of the plains. I
have seen epiphytal Orchids—Oncidiums, Odonto-
PAN TA NOTES OF A BOTANTES®? CHAP. XIX
glossums, etc.—growing in the Andes at 10,000
feet, where they must frequently endure frost; yet
these are precisely the kinds that have been found
(hitherto) most difficult to cultivate in England.
The greatest height to which I have yet climbed
was 13,000 feet, on the volcane “Pichmehar mear
Quito. It 1s practicable to ride up fo @he very
edge of the crater (15,000 feet), amd it wase my
intention to do so, but my guide mistook the way,
and we got entangled in thickets at about 11,000
feet, where we had to dismount and cut a way for the
horses to pass, and finally to leave them tied to bushes
and continue the ascent on foot. I had only lately
emerged from the sick-room, and got very much
fatigued with two hours of steep, rugged climbing.
At the highest point we reached, we lay down to rest
on the grass, and I had lain a few minutes with my
eyes closed when I suddenly felt as it were a flag
waved over my face, and looking up saw an immense
condor sailing over us at only a few feet distance.
My companion sprang to his feet with a shriek,
and prepared to defend himself with his. staff.
“He thinks we are dead,” said he, ‘‘and if we had
lain a moment longer we should have felt his beak
and claws in our faces!” The condor was immedi-
ately joined by two others of his species, but being
baulked of their prey, they rose in slowly widening
circles, and at length appeared only specks on the
bright heaven. This incident was additional con-
firmation to me that the vulture tribe hunt by sight
and not by scent. The condor is a magnificent
bird, but yet looks very much like a turkey-buzzard
on a large scale, and has not the noble aspect of the
golden eagle and the royal eagle of the Amazon.
‘VHONIHOIG AO TOTS LSVA-HLIQOS NO SOLINQ—ZI ‘OIA
ooo IN PoE BECUADOREAN ANDES 217
.. . Here, on the eastern side of the Cordillera,
summer fairly began last month (October), but its
continuity has been interrupted for some days by a
succession of terrific thunderstorms, one of which has
caused a break of two hours in the writing of this
letter. Three days ago, two women were struck
dead by lightning while gathering sticks on the
plain outside the town; and yesterday six people
were killed and a wheat-stack burnt down at a
village a little south from us.
. . . Matters are in a very unsettled state here,
and preparations for war with Peru resound on
every hand. Recruiting—forced contributions of
money and horses—people hiding in the forests
and mountains to avoid being torn from their
families—scarcity and dearness of provisitons—such
are some of the precursors of the contest. And the
war—if it actually comes—will be something like
what you have read of in India; yet nobody knows
what it is to be about! These Spanish Republics
are not unlikely to squabble among one another until
—like the Kilkenny cats—there is nothing left of
them but their ¢az/s; and then Jonathan will step
in and make an easy prey of their mangled carcasses
(Hibernice loquitur).
fe tlow often have ] regretted that England
did not possess the magnificent Amazon valley
instead of India! If that booby James, instead of
putting Raleigh in prison and finally cutting off
his head, had persevered in supplying him with
ships, money, and men until he had formed a per-
manent establishment on one of the great American
rivers, I have no doubt but that the whole American
continent would have been at this moment in the
218 NOTES On A BOTANIST CHAP.
hands of the English race. It should be noted that
this consummation has also been hindered by our
unbroken alliance with the most beggarly nation in
Europe (Portugal) — the nation which most hates
the English, because they have most interfered
with her staple trade—the traffic in human flesh !
[Among a quantity of loose notes, headed
‘ Quitonian Andes,” the following, on the “ Bridge
of Bafios,” seems worth quoting :—]
“The Pastasa runs in a tortuous couse vabeut
40 feet broad, between perpendicular walls 150 feet
high, sometimes much excavated at the base, the
water foaming against blocks and down cascades
into deep caverns, whence it issues in a savage
whirl. Across this chasm the frail bridge is thrown,
and is higher at its northern side. The adjacent
rocky ground seems as if it had been shaken into
irregular rather small fragments, not separated but
as if the original mass of rock had been crushed
without much displacement. The ground rises
abruptly to a great height on the left, but lower
on the right; and a col stretches on one side
towards the other, looking as if it might formerly
have been the barrier of a lake.
The view down the Pastasa as one descends the
hill towards the bridge is savagely sublime. A dense
grey curtain of Tillandsia—sometimes 30 feet deep—
hangs from the cliffs and adjacent trees, contrasting
with the black trachytic rock over which it hangs.”
[The bridge here referred to was probably of
similar construction to that at Agoyan (described
at p. 163), which was passed on the route from
maa tN THE BCUADOREAN ANDES 219
Canelos, and which consisted of a few trunks of
trees covered with bushes and earth.
In the following ‘‘ note”’ of a visit to Penipe—
a hill-village near Riobamba—a much more perilous
kind of bridge, common in the Andes, is described. |
“the distance from Riobamba is about 4
leagues. The road leads a little to the south of
Guano; at near half-way it passes some low flats in-
undated in winter, or interspersed with small lagoons,
now (February) mostly left dry, and covered with a
whitish saline deposit. In places where moisture
Peemreserved there are beds of tall Cyperacea
(Scerpus validus), of which mats are plaited. After
passing this the road ascends gradually to a consider-
able elevation (about 1500 feet above Riobamba),
whence there is a splendid view of the western side
of Tunguragua, which is its most striking aspect.
The top of the ridge reached, there is a long descent
to the river Pastasa, with a narrow plateau about
midway, along which the road runs for some distance
parallel to the river. At last there is a steep wind-
ing descent to the hanging bridge of Penipe, which
is formed by cables made of roots of Agave, 4 inches
thick, stretched as in an ordinary suspension bridge ;
and the roadway consists of sticks tied across the
cables. These sticks should be flattened and touch-
ime@each other, but many of them are left in their
original rotundity, and they are sometimes wide
enough apart for a foot to slip between. ‘The bridge
sways to and fro when the wind is high, and
oscillates fearfully as one passes over it. It has
also become lower on one side, and several sticks
are slipping away on that side. A rope is stretched
on each side at some height above the bridge; its
22@ NOTES OF AUBOTANIS®? CHAP. XIX
original intention seems to have been for a hand-
rail, but the bridge has so sunk away from them
that they can only be reached here and thesev even
by a very tall man.”
| These are the only references | cam@nmdire-the
dangerous bridges in the Andes, which Spruce
must have so frequently had to cross in his numerous
excursions. |
MAP SHEWING
SPRUCE’S PRINCIPAL ROUTES IN THE ANDES
By RED LINES
N.B.—The routes in the southern half of this map are better shown on the Map of the ‘‘Red Bark Region.”
The discrepancy in the position of some places on these two maps is due to the fact that the
latter was made nearly fifty years ago, and the country is still very imperfectly surveyed.
Miles Stanford's Geog? Estabt, London
0 5 0 10 20
London : Macmillan & Co. Jitd.
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CEPA baer Ra xX
“AMBATO AND) THE CINCHONA FORESEES OF ALAUSI, ON
THE WESTERN SLOPES OF MOUNT AZUAY
(January to December 1859)
iS sOr BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS
AT FARM OF TAMAUTE
fam. “1. Descended to Banos.
AT VILLAGE OF PUELA
Ree 2 Ascended from Banos to Puela, a village at the north-
western foot of Tunguragua (height 7000 feet) and
near the confluence of the rivers Puela and Chambo,
and remained there till the 16th, making in that
time three ascents of Tunguragua by the ravine
Mapa-yacu.
a0; From Puela to Tamaute. Collecting at Tamaute
until end of month, including an ascent of Mount
Condorasco (a shoulder of El Altar) by way of
Quinia.
eb. 2. From Tamaute to Riobamba.
Pera 33. To Ambato.
AMBATO
woe | At Ambato.
53 tegen To Banos.
» 9-11. Collecting near Banos.
ea 2: To Ambato.
B28: Until end of month examining and packing collec-
tions.
221
222
1859.
March-—
April.
May.
june:
ely si 25,
py teier
Nov. 12.
I 3-30.
Dee Sera
NODES OF 2 BOT Miss CHAP.
Throughout these months examining and packing
ferns and mosses, and making short excursions
near Ambato.
At Ambato; and excursion of four days to the valley
of Leito.
At Ambato: the first half of the month confined to
the house by fever.
At Ambato: excursion to Guayrapata, etc.
EXPEDITION TO VALLEY OF ALAUSI
From Ambato to Riobamba.
From Riobamba to farm of Miraflores near Guam6ote.
To Alausi.
Down valley to Chunchi.
To farm of Guataxi, where I established myself.
Down valley to Lucmas.
Down valley to Puma-cocha, where the Red Bark
grows (4000 feet).
At Puma-cocha.
At Lucmas.
Back to Guataxi.
Collecting on the hills and by the streams of Guataxi.
In the forest of Llalla, on the western slope of Mount
Azuay. Altitude gooo feet.
Returned to Guataxi, and remained there the rest of
the month.
At Gusunay, on opposite side of river Chanchan, and
higher up the valley.
At Guataxi and neighbourhood.
From Guataxi by way of Alausi to Ticsan.
To farm of Miraflores.
To Riobamba.
From last date to this at Riobamba.
To Mocha.
To Ambato.
AMBATO
At Ambato: packing collections from Guataxi, etc.
To farm of Juivis near Banos, and remained there
until November 12, making in that time an ascent
of Tunguragua by the Alisal.
An excursion down to Agoyan.
At Ambato: examining mosses, etc. etc.
All this month at Ambato, occupied as in November.
| The portions of letters selected to formas
xx AMBATO 223
chapter comprise such episodes as a war, an earth-
quake, and an insurrection ; but the most important
portion of it consists of a very detailed account of a
two and a half months’ excursion to the Bark forests
of Alausi in the western slopes of the Andes, in a
letter to Sir William Hooker. This was printed
i the Journal of the Linnean Society, but as it is
full of interesting matter I include it here, only
omitting such passages as refer to his future pro-
ceedings in another district, the full account of
which will occupy the next chapter. |
To Mr. George Bentham
AMBATO, March 3, 1859.
We are still at war with Peru, and the blockade
of Guayaquil continues, the Pacific steamers being
allowed to land only the mails and passengers.
The indiscriminate pressing of men and_ horses
for the Ecuadorean army, and the scarcity and
dearness of the necessaries of life (potatoes, for
example, have been at ten times the price they
bore when Seemann visited this country), have much
impeded and restricted the field of my operations.
In the beginning of summer (end of July 1858) I
went to Quito, and my first intention was to visit
some unexplored localities in that neighbourhood,
and thus occupy myself until the next rainy season ;
but I suffered so much in that rarefied atmosphere
that I soon sought a more genial clime, and as |
hoped an excellent field of operations, in the forest
of Pallatanga, which is near half-way from Rio-
bamba towards the narrow plain bordering the
Pacific, and at a height of 5000 to 7000 feet. You
224 NOTES OF A BOT tse CHAP.
will have learnt from a letter | wrote toe
Saunders that I found the vegetation there (in
October 1858) consisted of so very few species
that I judged it expedient to return teaite:Sicme.
where I found the people in great alarm= samen
at the devastating progress of their own armies
than at the threatened invasion of the Peruvians—
and ready to desert the towns should hostilities
actually commence. So the risk of losing all my
goods has kept me from leaving them far, during
the remainder of the dry season. But for this, |
should, after leaving Pallatanga, have plunged into
some other forest, for I find that the woody slopes
on both sides of the Andes must be in future my
principal field for collecting, -the really (Alpinte
plants having been already gathered to a great
extent, and having most of them a very wide
range.
I am now packing my flowers and ferns, which
(especially the former) comprise many interesting
things, gathered under disadvantageous circum-
stances. The difficulties of travelling anywhere
out of the central plain of the Ecuadorean Andes
is immense. Roads there are none—what go by
that name are deep slippery gullies and narrow
ledges along steep declivities, where far more lives
are annually lost than in navigating the rivers of
tie splaliine ss:
To Mr. George Bentham
AMBATO, Afri 13, 1859.
_. . The collection now sent is not of the class
I could have liked, but the unsettled state of the
. AMBATO - 225
country has prevented me leaving the higher
grounds. The facilities of getting about and of
procuring provisions have also limited the explora-
tions of all previous travellers almost entirely to
the central plain—“ callejon ” (lane) they call it here
—of the Quitonian Andes, and to the adjacent snowy
Summits; but I am certain that the forests on the
eastern and western slopes are still almost entirely
unexplored, from a height of 3000 to 8000 feet. I see
scarcely any real trees described among Hartweg’s
plants. These forests contain also the finest ferns.
That they are still almost intact is not to be won-
dered at, when their exploration involves the risk
of life, health, and everything; especially those on
the eastern side. I hope by little and little to go
over them and send you their gleanings.
Lo Mr. john Teasdale
AMBATO, April 14, 1859.
... Lhe introduction of the Christian religion
among the South American Indians I have visited
has been, for the most. part, a decided injury to
them. Formerly they had either no religion at all
or they were nearly pure theists; now they are
decided idolaters, as many Catholic priests have
candidly admitted to me. Among the vices they
have contracted in their ‘civilised” state, not the
least frightful is the readiness to sell or hire their
wives and daughters to the lustful white man. At
from 50 to 100 miles from where I am writing, on
the eastern slope of the Andes, there are still
powerful independent tribes who refuse to receive
MOL. II Q
226 NOTES OF “& BOA Nish CHAP.
the missionary, but who would kill any of their
women on whom the white man should merely look
to lust after her... . The term “‘savazes ace
glibly bestowed by writers on the Indian races,
would be more correctly applied to those Christian
nations who play at the game of war, and who,
instead of deciding their differences on the principle
of ‘doing to others as you would they should do to
you,” kill, burn, and waste as many and as much as
they can.
... Yet the introduction of a purée and emnpie
Christianity might much benefit the Indian; and
we must not too harshly judge him for transgressions
against our own moral code. The Indian’s notion
of ‘crime,’ for example, is not the same 25eemrs:
He feels the disgrace of being found out in a lie or
a theft, but.1f he escapes detection heVexuilrevimyinic
adroitness. He is naturally apathetic and dislikes
exertion; but he makes his wife work like a slave.
On the Rio Negro I have seen the poor women
grating mandiocca by moonlight until midnight ; and
they must be stirring before daybreak to give their
husband his morning drink; while he, extended in
his hammock, is warming his nether extremities
near a fire which must not be allowed to go out.
When I had seen this, I felt no pity for the Tadian
when the white man took him by force to row his
boats and do other work for him.
... On March 22 of this year_a fearful earen-
quake shook the whole of the Quitonian Andes.
The damage done in Quito itself is estimated
at four millions of dollars, and some adjacent
villages are quite destroyed; but as the shock
came by day, only a few people were killed who
x AMBATO 227)
were in the churches—the buildings that suffered
fests) On that day Dr. Taylor of Riobamba
and his son were my guests, and (along with my
lad) we were riding down the valley to eat peaches
at aneighbouring farm. Singularly enough, neither
we nor our horses felt the shock, although it was
a very long one; but all on a sudden we saw
people running out of their houses, and clouds of
dust rising up among the hills. A little way farther
on several tons of earth had been shaken down
across our path, and we passed the deébris with
difficulty, and not without risk that more might fall
and crush us. Below the farm, the cliff bounding
the valley had slid down for a length of 200
yards, and the people of the farm had been half
choked and blinded with the dust raised by the fall.
In the town of Ambato itself no damage was done
beyond the cracking of a few very old and of some
very new walls. On the following day, about 2 p.M.,
I was startled by hearing the family of my neigh-
bour (and landlord) run shrieking into the yard,
crying out ‘‘Temblor! temblor!” I ran out myself
just in time to see the walls of an unfinished house,
which an ambitious shopkeeper had been rearing
close by to the imprudent height of three stories,
crumble to the ground. The adobes had not got
“set,” and the earthquake had cracked several of
them; hence the downfall of the whole. Fortunately,
nobody was injured by the fall.
I have been entrusted by the India Govern-
ment with the charge of obtaining seeds and young
plants of the different sorts of Cinchona (Peruvian
Bark) found in the Quitonian Andes for transporting
to our Eastern possessions, where it is proposed to
228 NOTES OF A BOTANTS& CHAP.
form plantations of these precious trees on a large
scale. This ‘task will occupy me (if my life be
spared) the greater part of next year.
The expedition to the woods above spoken of
(in August and September of 1859) was to make
myself acquainted with the different sorts of Barks,
and to ascertain what facilities existed for procuring
their seeds, etc., or, more properly speaking, what
difficulties had to be overcome, and I assure you
they are not slight ones. I established myself in a
sugar hacienda about half-way between Riobamba
and Cuenca, and five days’ journey from Ambato,
and from thence penetrated two days’ journey
farther into the forest towards the west, or nearly
to the roots of the Andes on the Pactterside=3 ife
owner of the hacienda, Don Pepé Leon, a descend-
ant of a noble Spanish family, and his wife, Sefora
Manuelita (a handsome and very clever Ambatina
—most of the handsome women are of Ambato),
were very agreeable people, and I spent a pleasant
time with them.
NoTEs OF A VISIT TO THE CINCHONA FORESTS IN
THE VALLEY oF ALAusi, ON THE WESTERN
SLOPE OF. THE QUITONIAN ANDES
To Sir William Hooker
AMBATO, Oct. 20, 1850:
My last letter informed you that I was con-
templating an expedition to the forests producing
the Cinchona tree on the western slopes of the
Quitonian Andes. I was for some time doubtful as
to what part | should visit. It was but two or three
xX THE FORESTS OF ALAUSI 229
days’ journey to the forests of Jilimbi and Guanujo
at the western foot of Chimborazo, but to reach
tiem the Paramo de Puenevata (the northern
shoulder of Chimborazo) has to be passed near the
snow-limit, and in the months of July and August
it snows there almost incessantly, while the winds
blow with a violence unparalleled even in this windy
region, frequently hurling away both horse and
rider, who are either seen no more or their mangled
remains are found at the foot of some precipice.
Besides, only one sort of Cinchona was known to
exist in those forests, whereas by going a few days’
journey farther to the southward, to the forests
below Alausi, in the valley of the river Chanchan, |
iment expect to find three sorts, and the road
thither nowhere ascends above 12,000 feet. So the
latter plan was finally adopted, and on the 22nd of
July I sallied forth from the pleasant town of
Ambato (8500 feet) along the narrow ‘“‘callejon”
(lane) which separates the eastern from the western
branch of the Cordillera. My company comprised
five horses and mules, one mounted by myself,
another by my servant, and the remaining three
laden with my baggage, consisting of drying-paper,
clothing and bedding, and a copious supply of tea,
coffee, and sugar—articles rarely to be met with in
a country where there are no inns, and where the
inhabitants with few exceptions use no_ other
beverage than aguardiénte and sour chicha. An
arriero took charge of the beasts of burden.
Our first day’s stage to Riobamba was a long
one, 125 Columbian leagues (about 4o English
mes); Lhe first five leagues, reaching to the
village of Mocha, are along a very gradual ascent,
230 NOTES OF -A BOTAN TS CHAP.
varied by a few shallow quebradas (ravines). The
soil is what in Yorkshire we used to call “a leight
blaw-away sand,” which, when the sun and wind are
up, scorches and blinds the traveller, though it
produces scanty crops of maize, barley, peas, and
lupines (eaten here under the name of ‘“‘ chocchos ”).
The indigenous vegetation is limited to a few
insignificant weeds, chiefly Composites, nestling
under the hedges of Yucca and Agayexs aie
flowers of the two latter plants—so great a rarity
in England—are here to be seen all the year round,
and their tall tree-like peduncles are the poles used
throughout the Cordillera for all common purposes,
such as fences, rafters, and even walls of houses,
etc. Long files of asses laden with them enter the
towns of Ambato and Riobamba every market-day.
Beyond Mocha we leave the sandy country, and
after passing two streams which descend from
Mount Carguairazo on our right, we begin to
ascend to the Paramo de Sanancajas, the grassy
meseta (plateau) which extends along the eastern
base of Chimborazo, at a height of from 11,000 to
12,000 feet. Near its commencement the road
leading from Quito to Guayaquil branches off to the
right, while that to Riobamba and Cuenca continues
straight on. The weather had been rainy for many
previous days, and we had had drizzling rain all the
way to Mocha, so that we were not without appre-
hension of suffering from the cold on the paramo.
Fortunately, just as we reached it, the sun shone
forth, the clouds cleared away, and the glaciers of
Chimborazo stood out against the blue sky like cut
marble; but the ground was still so sloppy that
what I had formerly passed over in two hours now
xx iaAeesORE STS OF ALAUSI ~ 231
took me three. What is called the “road” consists
of I know not how many deep ruts, crossing and
anastomosing in a very bewildering way, and
so muddy and slippery that my horse preferred
stumbling along among the hassocks of paja blanca
(white grass)—a species of Stipa with feather-like
silvery panicles tinged with rose—which forms the
mass of the vegetation on the paramo. This grass
affords excellent thatch; it is also extensively used
in packing, and along all the higher grounds it is
almost the only material for fuel. Between the
hassocks, especially where there are slight declivities,
there is an interesting sub-alpine vegetation—a
dense grassy turf is enamelled with flowers, white,
yellow, red, and purple, which seem to spring direct
from the ground. Three daisy-like Wernerie, all
stemless and solitary, of which W.. xudzgena with its
large white stars is the most conspicuous, grow
along with a stemless Valeriana, a small Castilleja,
a Lupinus, a Cerastium, two species of Gentiana,
and two of Azorella. The cespitose Werneriz are
true alpines, and grow at 2000 feet above the
eeecies just referred to: There are many tittle
lakes, frequently bordered by the swelling, glaucous,
sphagnum-like tufts of a Plantago, over which creep
the silvery threads of a minute Gnaphalium and an
equally minute white-flowered Gentiana. In such
situations grow also a small Ranunculus, bearing
generally a single sessile flower and a pedunculate
head of follicles, a Stachys, and several other herbs
of humble growth. Heath-like tufts of Medyotes
evicotdes, often accompanied by a suffruticose
Valeriana of similar habit, and sometimes by a
Calceolaria, here and there diversify the landscape ;
232 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
while the hassocks shelter in their bosom purple
Lycopodia and other plants.
Having passed Sanancajas, we descend to the
sandy plain of Riobamba, whose general character
is the same as that of Ambato, save that cactus-
hedges often replace those of aloes.
In Riobamba I remained three days with my
hospitable countryman Dr. James Taylor, and then
proceeded on my way, going the first day only as
far as Miraflores, a farm six leagues away from Rio-
bamba, and near the village of Guamote. On the
way we had to climb over a small space of paramo,
where we got the benefit of a’ storm of hail and
sleet. The vegetation was scanty, and I gathered
only a minute Umbellifer which was new to me.
Miraflores is what is called a cold farm, consisting
chiefly of pasture and barley fields. A short ascent
from it brought us upon the Paramo de Tiocajas,
which is full six leagues across. Anything more
desolate than this paramo I have nowhere seen. It
is one great desert of movable sand, in which the
distant patches of Cacti, Hedyotis, and a succulent
Composita only render its nakedness more apparent.
Where there is a little moisture, solitary plants of a
silky-leaved Plantago struggle for existence. The
altitude is about the same as that of Sanancajas, and
it may be imagined how cheerless was a slow ride |
of nearly 20 miles over such a waste, rendered
all the more gloomy by a leaden sky overhead, and
a piercing wind which came laden with mist and
fine sand. I was obliged to go nearly at the pace
of my loaded beasts, the unsettled state of the
country, and the number of deserters from the
“constitutional” army roaming about, rendering it
xX THE FORESTS OF ALAUSI 233
unsafe to leave my goods a moment. Yet even
suehean “Ager Syrticus”’ has its points of interest,
for on this place is seen the dividing of the waters
of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. We passed
many small streams, some rising on the paramo
and some in the Western Cordillera, but all running
eastward to join the Great River, with whose waters
and forests I was long so familiar; when, however,
we approached the southern side of the paramo, we
came on the Rio de Pumachaca (River of the Bridge
of Tigers), a considerable stream rising in the
Eastern Cordillera and running westward towards
the Pacific; it is, in fact, one of the sources of the
river Yaguachi, which enters the Gulf of Guayaquil.
From the Pumachaca northward, until very near
Quito, all the streams of the central plain between
the two branches of the Cordillera flow eastward,
and unite in the gorge of Bafios to form the river
Pastasa, which speedily reaches the Amazonian
plain, and thence the Atlantic; but the streams
around Quito itself unite to form the river of
Esmeraldas, and seek: the Pacific. Near the
Pumachaca there was rather more vegetation ;
patches of Cyperaceze were dotted with the white
flowers of a minute Lobelia, which I have seen in
many similar situations, and groups of Cactus were
draped over by an Atropa, remarkable for its
aromatic leaves. It is singular that in so deadly
a genus all the species I have seen in the Quitonian
Andes have edible though very acid fruit, and that
the shoots are cropped by asses and llamas.
As we descended from the southern side of the.
paramo, the Hedyotis began to be mixed with a
small labiate shrub of very similar foliage, and
234 NOTES OF A BOTAN CHAP.
bearing numerous spikes of lilac or violet flowers ;
and farther down the latter grew so abundantly that
it covered the whole hill-side with a mass of aromatic
flowers, which was an agreeable change from the
sterile paramo. The road ran parallel to the
Pumachaca, but at a vast height above it. It was
well on in the afternoon when we reached the
village of Ticsan, still in the cool region, and, as we
calculated on finding more comfortable quarters in
Alausi, which was two leagues ahead, we resolved
to try to reach it, which we accomplished just after
nightfall, having in the day made ten leagues.
With some trouble we succeeded in getting a little
food for ourselves; but food for our beasts was of
more importance, and we could get none. At
4 o'clock the following morning I roused my people
and sent them out to the neighbouring farms in
quest of alfalfa (lucerne). They returned bringing
a mule-load, which, though an insufficient quantity,
was better than none, and we delayed our journey
until 8 o’clock in order that the poor animals might
eat, for we had this day only five leagues before us.
Our road now turned to the right, while that
to Cuenca continues southward and crosses the
elevated ridge of Azuay. We still followed the
course of the Pumachaca, which gradually turns
westward, and bursts through the Cordillera in a
gorge so deep and narrow that with difficulty has a
narrow path been cut along the declivity on the
southern side. The whole five leagues from Alausi
to Chunchi consists of steep ascents and descents,
and of perilous crossings of precipitous slopes, not
to be passed without a shudder ; for the track is in
many places so narrow that two persons mounted
os THE FORESTS OF ALAUSI 235
could not pass each other without endangering the
life of one of them. Fortunately, our beasts were
sure-footed and the road was dry; in fact, from
Ticsan, where we fairly began to descend the
western slope of the Cordillera, we found we had
got into the height of summer, having left mid-
winter behind us at Ambato and Riobamba. The
hill-sides were well covered with grass, but all
completely withered up by nearly two months of
Gg weather; so that, except near the streams,
where there was a margin of scrub or low forest,
the eye rested on nothing green.
Alausi stands at about the same height as
Ambato, but is subject to still more violent winds,
so that ¢ven the crops of maize are rarely to be
seen standing erect. As a town it bears no com-
parison with Ambato either for size or neatness,
and, like all the other pueblos of the canton (of
which it is the chef-lzeu), seems to have been for
several years in a state of decadence: the houses
begin to fall and are merely propped up, not
fepeinea Or rebuilt; and yet there are all around
valuable farms of wheat and maize.
Throughout the Quitonian Andes a bit of solid
rock is rarely seen, save where black, jagged masses
of trachyte stand out in the higher peaks, which
are all either active or dormant volcanoes; and on
a superficial view most of the hills seem to be made
up of débris, either, as around Ambato, of calcined
and triturated granite and schists, or, as in descend-
ing from Alausi, of stones and rude blocks con-
fusedly heaped together. But in one place we
saw above us a low cliff of vertical strata, much
cracked and bent, as if by some force applied to
236 NOTES ‘OF AUVBODAN Tom CHAP.
their ends. The brown hill-sides began to be
diversified by an arborescent Cactus, with polygonal
stems and white dahlia-like flowers, which, Briareus-
like, threw wide into the air its hundred rude arms.
Lower down, at about 6000 feet, I saw specimens
full 30 feet high and 18 inches in diameter. Along
with it grew frequently a Cesalpinia and a Tecoma,
both of which are abundantly planted near Ambato
and Guano, the former for the sake of its bark,
used in tanning, and the latter because it bears a
profusion of ornamental yellow flowers, and is
supposed to possess wonderful medicinal virtues.
About two leagues below Alausi the road
descends to the margin of the river, where it meets
the Chanchan, a larger stream coming from the
Eastern Cordillera, near the volcano Sangay; the
two united take the name of the latter, and
preserve it until issuing into the plain, where,
joined by the Chimbo from Chimborazo, they form
the river Yaguachi, which empties itself into the
gulf just above the city of Guayaquil. Crossing
the Chanchan by a rude bridge near its junction
with the Pumachaca, we entered on a beach clad
with a grove of Acacias—low spreading trees with
very odoriferous yellow flowers and binate spines
sometimes 3 inches long. Near this place, which
was still some 8000 feet above the sea, we came
on the first sugar-cane farm. The road again
leaves the river, and we had finally to climb a long
cuesta to reach the village of Chtnchi, which is
full 1500 feet above the river.
« :Chtinchi is the last village on the slope of the
Cordillera, and.I had calculated on making it my
head-quarters, though the forest is still a day’s
KX THE FORESTS OF ALAUSI 237
journey farther down. I brought recommendations
from Ambato, and the people seemed willing to
assist me; but the houses were so miserable, so
full of dirt and vermin, and so utterly destitute of
furniture (for I could procure neither bedstead,
chair, nor table), that I saw I should work on my
plants with infinitely less comfort than I used to
do in a palm-hut in the warm forest. Another and
greater difficulty was the procuring of food for my
beasts, for all the pastures were dried up, and a
man who sold me alfalfa for two days then told me |
he could spare no more. About a league from
Chtinchi, and rooo feet lower down, there is a cane-
farm called Guataxi, whose owner, Senor José Leon,
J had known in Riobamba. Almost in despair,
I rode down to consult with him, and he at once
invited me to take up my quarters in the hacienda,
where he has a good house, with neatly-papered
rooms and decent furniture. The cane-grounds
extend along the banks of a stream, which before
falling into the Chanchan forms a considerable lake,
on whose shores there was still a little herbage ;
besides that a few squares near the house were
planted with alfalfa.
On the third day after establishing myself at
Guataxi, having procured a guide, I proceeded to
Lucmas, a short day’s journey lower down the
river, where there are a few small chacras tenanted
by Indians and Zambos. There I wastold I should
be near the Cascarilla roja (Red Bark), and I was
recommended to a person called Bermeo, who had
worked a good deal at getting out cascarilla and
sarsaparilla. [I at once secured his services, and,
as he turned out an honest, active fellow, I took
220 NODES OF A BORA loa CHAP.
him with me in all my subsequent excursions in
the district. From him I learnt that the Cascarilla
voja did not commence until another day’s journey
downwards, and that to have a chance of seeing it
in any quantity (which, he admitted, was at best
only problematical), it would be necessary to
penetrate at least three days into the forest. As
my object for the present was merely to make
myself acquainted with the plant, and with the
soil and climate in which it grows, I decided on
going no farther than until I should meet with it ;
for the procuring and transporting of provisions
necessary for a long stay in the forest is both
difficult and expensive.
I remained a day at Lucmas to look around. It
is at an altitude of between 5000 and 6000 feet,
and produces luxuriant sugar-cane. The small
banana called Guinéo flourishes (as indeed it does
at Guataxi), but the plantain is near its upper
limit, and the fruit is small and’scanty.- Pheretare
tolerably lofty forest trees in the valleys and on
the hills, while the steep sides of the latter are
often covered with grass, more or less intermingled
with scrub, and often with Bromeliacee. In
descending towards Lucmas, I saw on the bushy
hill-sides a great deal of the small tree called Palo
del Rosario, a curious, and I| believe undescribed,
Sapindacea, which I had already gathered at Bafios
in the Eastern Cordillera. Its most remarkable
feature is, that while the layer of wood next the
bark is quite white, all the internal layers are
purple-brown with a black outer edge—a colour
not unlike that of old walnuts; so that articles
fabricated of this wood are curiously mottled.
xx hHE PORESIS OF ALAUSI ~' 239
Unfortunately, the trunk never exceeds a few inches
in diameter, so that only small articles can be made
ois) .| have secured a specimen of the wood,
and of spoons made from it, for the Kew Museum.
One of the most frequent trees at Lucmas, and
the most valuable for its hard wood (though the
young branches are brittle), is an Escalloniacea
feived bona. it grows to a good- size; the
leaves are narrow-lanceolate and very long—the
lower ones always red—and the reddish flowers are
borne in long pendulous racemes; so that the tree
has a very pretty aspect. It abounds along the
western slope of the Cordillera, and grows at
from 5000 to gooo feet. It is accompanied by an
Amyrideous tree called Alubilla, which the people
hold in great dread, as they believe that to
touch it or pass beneath its shade is enough to
cause the body to swell all over. I had already,
at Bafios, gathered flowers and fruit of it, and
stained my hands with the milk, to the great horror
of those who saw me, but without experiencing any
ill effects; and I believe that the swelling attributed
to it is owing more to sudden changes of tempera-
ture, or to alternate scorchings and wettings, for
I have seen such an effect follow where there was
no Alubilla. Be this as it may, the young man
I took as guide felt one of his eyes begin to swell
the day we left Lucmas for Guataxi, and in a few
hours he was swollen from head to foot. In two
or three days he was quite well again, but there
are cases of the swelling lasting a month. As
might be supposed, the blame was laid on the
Alubilla.
Lucmas takes its name from the abundance of
240 NOTES OF & BOTAN CHAP.
a species of Lucuma, producing an edible fruit ;
that name is applied to many species of Lucuma
and Achras, all natives of warm or hot countries.
Another evidence of the approach to a hot climate
was in the existence of a species of Echites,
twining among the bushes, and in an epiphytal
Marcgraviacea, quite similar in its long scarlet
spikes to Vorantea gutanensis, though the bracts
are small patelle, not elongated sacs, as in that
species. A very odoriferous Citrosma, with large
thin leaves, three together, is known by the name
of Guayusa, and is often taken in infusion, like the
Guaytisa of Canelos, which, however, is a species
of Ilex.
There were a good many herbs, of species not
seen elsewhere. One Composita, with virgate
stems 12 feet high, large alternate lobed leaves,
and from each axil a small leafy ramulus bearing at
its apex a corymb of white radiate flowers, was very
ornamental. Orchidez were tolerably abundant,
but prettier even than these were two Bromeliacee;
the one seemed at first sight merely a mass of long
scarlet flowers growing out of the moss on‘old trees
and stones, for the leaf-sheaths are imbricated into
a little bulb, and the blade is reduced to a spine ;
the other (apparently an A‘chmea) has broadish
soft leaves and large violet flowers looking at
a distance more like those of an Imis=epeanm
Amaryllidea.
On the 4th of August my company started for
the forest, our destination being the Rio de Puma-
cocha, a large stream rising in Azuay and falling
into the Chanchan at about 4ooo feet altitude, on
the farther side of which much Red Bark has been
xX itt eOREStS OF ALAUSI — oa1
got in former years. We started on horseback,
and a mule carried our necessaries. My counsel
was to leave the horses, but Bermeo felt sure |
should not be able to perform the distance on foot ;
we had gone, however, a very short way when we
found it necessary to cut our way through the
forest, for the track had got overgrown in two
years that no one had passed along it; nor was
it possible without wasting a good deal of time to
open a passage overhead so that a man might pass
mounted; I therefore preferred going on foot most
of the way. We reached the banks of the Puma-
cocha at an early hour of the afternoon, but the
ford which Bermeo had passed in former years had
been destroyed by the falling of a cliff, and in its
place we found a deep whirlpool ; so with the drift-
wood along the banks we set to work to make a
bridge where the river was narrowed between two
rocks, and when completed carried across it our
baggage, saddles, etc. Then, after a long search,
we found a place where we could swim the horses
over, and by rolling down a good deal of earth and
stones we made a way for them to ascend on the
@iumer side. Once across, we selected a site for
our hut among Vegetable-ivory palms, and thatched
the hut with fronds of the same. Close by were
the remains of a platanal, showing that the spot
had formerly been inhabited, and fortunately still
bearing a sufficient number of plantains to cook
along with our salt meat during the two days we
calculated on remaining there. Our horses were
taken to the top of a neighbouring hill, where there
was a bed of one of those large succulent Panicums
called Gamalote, which afford a very nutritious
OL, II R
ZAkZ NOTES OF A BOTANIS# CHAP.
food for cattle, and were there made fast for the
night. Here we slept tranquilly, save that we
were occasionally aroused by the snuffing of bears
around us; and before daylight Bermeo and his
companion were on foot, and making their way
through the forest in quest of Cinchona trees,
They returned at 7 o'clock, having found only
a single tree standing, and from that one the bark
had been stripped near the root, so that it was
dead and leafless. We breakfasted, and then |
accompanied them into the forest. We followed
the track they had already opened) and “ihen
plunged deeper in, meeting every few minutes with
prostrate naked trunks of the Cinchona, but with
none standing. Bermeo several times climbed
trees on the hill-sides, whence he could look over
a large expanse of forest, but could nowhere get
sight of the large red leaves of the Cinchona. At
length we began to tire, and we decided on return-
ing towards our hut, making a detour along a
declivity which we had not yet explored. We
went on still a long time with the same fortune,
and were beginning to despair of seeing a living
plant, when we came on a prostrate tree, from
the root of which a slender shoot, 20 feet high, was
growing. My satisfaction may well be conceived,
and my first thought was to verify a report that
had been made to me by every one who had
collected Cascarilla, namely, that the trees had
milky juice, which to me was strange and incredible
in the Rubiaceee. Bermeo made a slit in the bark
with the point of his cutlass, and I at once saw
what was the real fact. The juice is actually
colourless, but the instant it is exposed to the air
KX THE FORESTS OF ALAUSI 243
it turns white, and in a few minutes red. The
more rapidly this change is effected, and the deeper
is the ultimate tinge assumed, the more precious
feetae bark presumed to be. It is rare to find
shoots springing from an old root, because the
roots themselves are generally stripped of their
bark, which, along with the bark from the lower
Sar, of the trunk, is known by the name of
“Cascarilla costrona” (from ‘“‘costra,” a scab), and
is of more value than that from any other part of
ene tree.
The Cascarilla roja seems to grow best on stony
declivities, where there is, however, a good depth
of humus, and at an altitude of from 3000 to 5000
feet above the sea. The temperature is very much
that of a summer day in London, though towards
evening each day cold mists blow down the valley
from Azuay ; and for five months in the year—from
January to May—there is almost unceasing rain.
If the Cascarilla roja has been almost extirpated
at Pilma-cocha, there is still left abundance .of
Salsaparilla, and of a very productive kind, for
iermeo assured me he had once taken 75 ¢lbs.
weight of the roots from a single plant ; whereas in
Brazil the greatest yield I have heard quoted was
a little over 30 lbs. The Puma-cocha species has
a round stem and few prickles, while that most
esteemed on the Rio Negro has a triangular stem
thickly beset with prickles.
Let me now say a word about the other plants
accompanying the Cascarilla, and first of the Ivory
palm, which is known throughout the Ecuador by
meraame of Cadi... It has.a stout erect
trunk of 15 or 20 feet; the fronds are 30 feet long.
244 NOTES OF A BOTAN CHAP,
.. . The nuts are much the same as im@hetetien
species, only rather larger; they are extensively
used in the Sierra for making heads of dolls, saints,
and walking-sticks. The Cadi produces a very
excellent “cabbage,” but the Indian and other
inhabitants are fonder of a large maggot called
Majén which is bred in its trunk. I have seen
the Indians of the Rio Negro and of Canelos roast
and eat the larva of-a beetle extracted=trem@ine
trunk of the Pupunha palm (Guzltelma spectosa).
In general, the arborescent vegetation seemed
scanty in species and uninteresting. ~One ol @ihe
most striking trees was an Erythrina with a slender
tortuous (almost twining) trunk, from which sprang
long spikes of scarlet flowers, and few branches
bearing each a coma of ternate leaves, whereof the
leaflets were sometimes 18 inches across. ‘There
were also a few Figs, and on the steep declivities
there were patches of low forest, consisting chiefly
of Clusiz, Thibaudiz, and Melastomacee. Two
small Trichomanes crept along the branches of
shrubs, but terrestrial ferns were all but absent.
On returning that evening to our hut, I consulted
with Bermeo about our ulterior movements. He
told me that if I would go another day’s journey
into the forest, he could with certainty show me
more trees of the Cascarilla roja, which he had seen
not many months previously, and as on account of
the Revolution no one had this vear entered the
forests to collect Cascarilla, it was probable they
were still untouched. But for this our stock of
provisions would scarcely suffice, and I saw no
probability of adding anything interesting to the
XX THE FORESTS OF ALAUSI 245
Semeral collection; besides, I had to visit other
forests in quest of other sorts of Cascarilla, and |
saw the season was already passing for the flowers
and seeds of most trees. We therefore on the
following day retraced our steps up the valley,
and after another day spent at Lucmas in drying
my paper and adding what I could to my collection,
I returned to Guataxi.
Iiewas; unable jto move far fronr the farm for
above a fortnight afterwards, on account of the
passage of the Government troops from Quito to
Wwenca, ...-
During this interval I was obliged to content
myself with the flora of Guataxi. The cane-farm
is) about 7000 feet above the sea; the maximum
temperature each day was generally about 73°,
toueh it “once reached’ 77, and the minimum
femiperiure varied from 55° to 60. A plateau,
about a thousand feet higher, belongs to the farm,
and produces good crops of grain and potatoes.
The hills adjacent to the farm, except where under
cultivation and artificially irrigated, are covered
with grass, amongst which the withered remains
of a good many annuals were visible. Almost
the only annual still flourishing was, singularly
enough, a species of Monnina, with violet flowers ;
and, as most of the species of this genus are trees,
I took it for a Polygala until I saw the fruit. The
“Yerba Taylor” (/erpestes chamedryotdes, H.B.K.),
which has great fame as a remedy for snake-bites,
was frequent, but mostly scorched up. Amongst
the perennial herbs (most of which were new to
me) may be mentioned an Epilobium, a Stachys, a
Phaseolus, a Desmodium, two Crotalariz, a shaggy
246 NOTES OF A BOMANisa CHAP.
Hieracium, a very pretty Leria with large blue
flowers, growing on shady banks, and a branched
Composita with silky-white leaves and handsome
purple flowers, besides several Solanez, Labiate,
Ehretiacez, and two Acanthaceze, which last order
seems entirely absent from the cold region; also
a suffruticose Lantana with yellow flowers, which
I had not seen elsewhere. In moist places a little
Cuphea was very abundant. The shrubberies con-
sisted chiefly of Composite, whereof one resembled
a Spireea in aspect and in the odour of its numerous
small white flowers; but there was also a new
Biittneria, and the common Clematis of the warmer
parts of the Cordillera climbed about everywhere.
In cultivated ground, especially in the maize and
cane fields, two delicate broad-leaved Paspala
called Achin spring up in great abundance.
Every day I saw the servants of the farm get
bundles of them for the cows, pigs, etc., which ate
them with greater avidity than even the alfalfa, so
that, though weeds, they were nearly as valuable
to the owner as the crops amongst which they
grew.
Among the trees, which grew chiefly along the
banks of the river, were two species of Lycium not
previously seen, an Inga, a Mimosa, and a Bigno-
niacea with broad opposite leaves and cymes of
large purple flowers. The last, known by the name
of Hualla, is frequent in the Western Cordillera
at from 6000 to gooo feet, and is one of the best
timber trees. It is not improbably the little-known
Delostoma integrifolium, Don; but it is not a Delo-
stoma, for, besides an essential difference in the
calyx, the septum is contrary to the valves, as in
xX THE FORESTS OF ALAUSI 247
Tecoma, not parallel to them, as in Delostoma and
Bignonia.
So soon as the last soldier had passed, I put in
execution my project of visiting the forests pro-
ducing the Cascartlla serrana or Hill Bark, which
is found at 8500 to gooo feet on both sides of the
mver Chanchan. 1 went first to the forest of
Llalla, at the foot of Azuay, and only a little more
than two hours’ journey from Guataxi. Here there
-is a cattle-farm and a few Indian chacras, in one of
which I established myself. I found a rather in-
teresting vegetation, and this consoled me for my
wretched quarters in a hut dark and smoky, and so
low that I could not stand erect. We had happened
on a windy time, and as the walls and roof were
full of chinks, the violent wind which got up at
midnight starved us beneath all our blankets and
ponchos. After sunrise there was a brief lull, and
then it came on again to blow from the same
quarter (west, with a slight touch of northing), and
so continued through the day. We had no rain
during the five days of our stay, although the
storms on the farther side of Azuay often overlap
as far as Llalla, so that from Guataxi we could see
it raining in this hill-forest, when not a drop fell in
the lower grounds; and even when it does not
rain the forest is generally enveloped in mist.
This constant supply of moisture renders the vege-
tation more vigorous than in the dry grounds
below, and is the cause why the trees are so
thickly clad with mosses that it is difficult to push
one’s way through them. Two mosses, whose
long slender stems hang down like a beard from
the branches, bore here abundance of fruit, which
248 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
for two years I had sought in vain in other
localities. But I was most pleased to find a moss
with large laciniato-ciliate leaves—so novel a
feature in this tribe that I took it for a Plagiochila,
until I found the capsules nestling amongst the
terminal leaves,
To return, however, to our Cascarillas, of which.
there are two sorts in Llalla, the one called
‘“Cuichi-cara” or Pig-skin, because dried pieces of
the bark resemble morsels of pig’s skin boiled and.
then grilled (which is a favourite dish in Ecuador).
The same bark is sometimes called Chaucha, a
term implying thickness without much consistence ;
as, for example, in this bark, which shrinks much
in drying, and in a sort of large watery potato,
called Chauchas; The other bark is called ata
de gallinazo” or Turkey-buzzard’s foot ; it does not
peel off freely like the other, and when dried gener-
ally occurs in small split fragments, but as it is
rather deeper-coloured it is more esteemed than
the Cuchicara. The same or similar kinds are
known in other districts as Cascarilla naranjada.
The demand for either kind has of late years been
very slight, so that there has not been such
destruction of these barks as of the red, and ona
stony hill-side not far from the hut .[ found above
twenty large trees of the Cuchicara, from 40 to 50
feet high. All had fruited freely this year, but the
capsules were already empty, with the exception of
one small corymb. In the forest of Yalancay, on
the opposite side of the river and near the road
leading from Alausi to Guayaquil, I afterwards
found a tree with recent fruit and even a few
flowers. The latter are deep brick-red, and the
xx THE FORESTS OF ALAUSI 249
capsules are usually elongate-oblong, but vary to
roundish oblong. Trees of the Pata de gallinazo
were scarce, and I did not see any in flower or
fruit. Both sorts have the leaves broadly oval,
with or without a slight apiculus, and pubescent
beneath; but in the Cuchicara the petiole and
midrib are red, which is not the case with those of
the Pata de gallinazo, nor do the leaves of the
latter turn so red with age.
Of the trees growing along with the Cascarillas
in Llalla the Motilén was the most frequent and
the largest, attaining sometimes 60 feet in height.
This is the second species I have gathered under
this name; the fruit is an edible drupe, but I
hesitate to refer the genus to Amygdalee until |
see the flower. With the Motilén grew, however,
a true Cerasus, with very large leaves; it had
flowers and young fruit. Other trees in the same
forest. were-the Flualla, the Ignia, a Berberis, a
Rhamnus, a Nonatelia, two Myrtacez, and especi-
ally an arborescent Loranthus, with dense spikes
of fragrant yellow flowers—the leaves on some
ramuli alternate, on others opposite, and on others
three together. . . . The shrubs included a Barna-
desia, two Salviz, a sarmentose Fuchsia, and most
abundant and ornamental, an aphyllous Fuchsia,
epiphytal and climbing high up the trees, which it
adorned with its large vermilion flowers.
Patches of verdant pasture were scattered in the
forests, and in these I gathered a_ stoloniferous
Ranunculus new to me, a small Juncus, a curious
Rubiacea allied to Richardsonia, two Ionidia, the
one with red the other with scarlet flowers, and
some other herbs. In the woods there was also a
2250) NOTES OF A BOTANISS CHAP.
stinging herb with large white flowers of the order.
Loasee.
The Orchideze must not be forgottentaeney
were very numerous and in fine state, especially
two large-flowered Odontoglossa, whose liana-like
peduncles depended almost to the ground. There
were also some Oncidia and Epidendra, and many
curious things whose affinities I did not recognise,
and which I have not yet examined.
From Lialla 1 dispatched my ‘men to” the
adjacent paramos on that side of Azuay, with
instructions to bring me everything they found in
flower. They returned bringing a good many
alpines, including some pretty Senecios not else-
where seen, a red-flowered czspitose Werneria, a
small Crucifera, an Alstrcemeria, a Gnaphalium,
but especially a beautiful Gentiana, allied to G.
cernua, and instead of having only one or two.
pendulous flowers, as in that species, bearing a
profusion of erect pyriform red flowers.
[In a letter to Sir William Hooker from Ambato—
(Oct. 10, 1859), the following remark on the
vegetation of the two slopes of the Andes is of
much interest :—
‘As regards the general vegetation, the Amazon
side of the Andes is incomparably richer than the
Pacific side. In the former a perpetual spring
reigns—sun and rain divide each day, rain pre-
dominating in what is called winter and sun in
summer; but in the latter the ground gets burnt
up with seven months of dry weather, and soaked
with five months of continual rain. You will
therefore be prepared to hear that im “mylar
XX AMBATO 251
expedition to the Pacific side I have found scarcely
any ferns, and still fewer shells and beetles. ”
This statement was, however, somewhat modi-
fied in the following year, when he found that the
Cinchona forests of Limon, about 70 miles to
the north-west, had a rich and interesting flora, with
an abundance of ferns and orchids. The superior
richness of the eastern slopes as a whole seems,
however, to be an undoubted fact. |
Lo Mr. fohn Leasdale
AMBATO, JVov. 15, 1859.
Before I left Ambato for Guataxi (July 22), the
first Act of the Revolution was played out on the
fates sof Chimborazo, at a site called —Tumbuco,
where a battle was fought between the Government
troops (consisting chiefly of blacks and Zambos
from the low country around Guayaquil) and the
insurgents, who were “‘serranos,” or people of the
hill-country, some whites, some Indians, but the
most part of mixed race. The latter were defeated,
and the victorious army marched on Ambato. It
was something to see the flight of the inhabitants
of Ambato, and the files of mules laden with all
their movable goods, even to glass windows, when
the news of the battle of Tumbtico arrived.. I had
nowhere to flee to, so I laid in a stock of live pigs
and fowls, and of potatoes, stuck out the Union
Jack, and prepared for a siege. Well, the turbu-
lent blacks came on us by slow marches, but they
respected my house and cattle; and indeed the
whole town was let off with a requisition of pro-
visions and horses.- Yet the danger was not
252 NOTES OF A BOPANIS® CHAP.
imaginary, for Riobamba was sacked some time
afterwards (it is only a week ago to-day) by the
troops stationed there. Not a shop or a warehouse
was spared, and eight or nine private houses shared
the same fate.
.. . Your sanitary and social reformers seem
much occupied with devising suitable habitations
for the poor and industrious classes. They would
be much shocked could they see the promiscuous
way in which people sleep here, even immime
wealthiest houses. The other day I remonstrated
with my landlord—one of the best men in the place
—for allowing a number of people of both sexes to
sleep together in the same room—some in beds,
some on the floor. “I assure you, replica me
‘“we throw open both doors and windows at day-
break!” He had no ‘idea; poor =smanyeor sam,
possible vitiation of the moral atmosphere. I
thought of the fair (but frail) Pauline Buonaparte,
who, when an English lady asked her, ‘‘ How
could you sit so naked to that sculptor?” made
answer, ‘‘ My dear madam, you forget I had a fire
in the room!”
In January last I spent three weeks with the
Cura of Puela—a small village at the western foot
of Tunguragua. The parsonage-house consisted
of but two rooms, the one a small dormitory occu-
pied by the Padre, and where he had barely room
to turn himself; the other a much larger room,
where the rest of his family worked and ate during
the day, and slept at night. I append a diagram of
this main apartment, wherein 1, 2, 3) fepresemes
a raised stage made of wild canes (called a
XX PMO NS TOE ECUADOR 258
barbacéa), extending across one end of the room.
No. 1 was my bed, made neat and comfortable with
my own bedding (which I always carried about
with me, and was half a mule-load). In No. 2
slept two young fellows—the Padre’s servants—on
sheep-skins; and in No. 3 slept his two maid-
servants, at right angles to the men, and with their
feet towards them. No. 4 is a bench whereon
reposed my lad. No. 5 is a curtained four-post bed,
Corridor
O
Pics 13.
occupied by the Padre’s maiden sister, of the matronly
age of twenty-one years complete; and No. 6 a
small recess, jutting on the external corridor, where
a young fellow—the Padre’s nephew—extended his
lazy length on a barbacda; but even this place was
open to the main room, having a doorway but no
door. I afterwards transferred my bed to No. 6,
on the Padre’s suggestion that it was snugger and
more retired !
Tue INDIANS OF THE ECUADOREAN ANDES
Pecannet find im Spruce's MSS. or notes any
account of the natives of the highlands of Ecuador,
although he must have seen a good deal of them as
muleteers or porters during his very numerous
254. NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. XX
excursions, or as dealers in the various products of
the country. He sent home, however, to his friend
Mr. Teasdale a set of forty-four coloured drawings
of ‘““Costumes and Customs of Quito,” which are
now in possession of his son John Teasdale, Esq.,
Solicitor, of York, and which he has kindly allowed
me an opportunity of inspecting. These were
executed by a native Indian (though some writers
doubt if there are any absolutely pure Indians left
in Ecuador), and are very spirited and life-like,
representing all the various trades and occupations
of the people in their respective working or holiday
costumes, and very naturally coloured, both colours
and brushes being made by the artist himself from
native vegetables or minerals. They serve to
illustrate not only the people themselves, but their
tastes in dress and ornaments, and support the view
of previous writers as to their possession of mental
faculties comparable with those of their conquerors
and masters. 7
Yet they appear to be by no means prepossess-
ing, as exhibited in the accompanying portraits of
four Quito Indians, reproduced from photographic
prints in Dr. Theodor Wolfs Geografia y Geologta
del Ecuador. ‘These recall in their coarse massive
features and stolid expressions many of the natives
of the North American plains and mountains, such
as the Cheyennes and some others, and suggest an
original identity of the mountain as opposed to the
forest tribes of both continents.
The following description of the Ecuadoreans in
the Universal Geography of Elisée Reclus emphasises
the several characteristics of these people. ‘‘ Except
during times of frenzy and ecstasy, the Ecuadoreans
LO:
I
CE OF Qu
NS OF THE PROVIN
INDIA
From Wolf
4
I
Ene:
)
-
.
s Geografia y Geologia del Ecuador
b)
(
aes
=. INDIANS OF ECUADOR 257
areasadand sullen people. ‘The features, especially
of the women, seem haggard with care and sullen
misery. Yet, despite their sordid surroundings,
the Quitonians appear to possess the sentiment of
form and colour in the highest degree. _Notwith-
standing the rigid formulas and conventionalities
to which the priests have enslaved them, many of
the Mestizoes and even of the full-blood Indians
succeed in executing really remarkable religious
paintings as well as sculptures of Christs and
Madonnas, works greatly admired in Peru and
other South American countries, to which they are
regularly exported. But the natives have lost one
artistic industry—inlaid work in costly woods. It
liasbeen noticed also that neither his extreme
poverty nor the dull existence to which he is con-
demned has prevented the Ecuadorean from
distinguishing himself by the elegant cut and har-
moniously-blended colours of his native costumes.”
We seem to have here the surviving remnants
of a people with high capabilities, who have been
so crushed down by centuries of slavery and repres-
sion, combined with the struggle against the forces
of nature in some of their most terrible aspects,
as to have become degraded both physically and
mentally, while still exhibiting unmistakable traces
of the higher civilisation and more sympathetic
government they enjoyed under the Incas. |
NiO LI S
“CHA PDE Red
THE CINCHONA FORESTS OF EL LIMON, ON =e
WESTERN SLOPE OF CHIMBORAZ®
(1860)
[Tunis year was wholly occupied in the arduous
work of obtaining for the Indian Government seeds
and young plants of the best of the medicinal barks,
produced by the Czxchona succtrubra, which was
becoming exceedingly scarce owing to the reckless
destruction of the trees producing it. The bulk of
the present chapter is occupied with a reprint of
the more interesting portions of the very full
report of his labours made by Spruce. This is of
much general and historical as well as of botanical
interest, and as it can now only be procured in a
very cumbrous form in a large and costly ‘“ Blue
book” comprising the whole official record of the
introduction of the various Bark trees into India,
its inclusion in any account of Spruce’s botanical
work is imperative.
I give first the ‘ List of Botanical Excursions”
for the year, which summarise the whole story ;
and also some short extracts from the few letters
he was able to write, which supply some more
personal and descriptive features to the narrative. |
258
CHAP. XXI
Pav BA EO 259
ith OF EXCURSIONS DURING THE YEAR
1860.
Jan.-
Feb.-
March.
25-
May-
ne. Ts
Chiefly at Ambato, making preparations for entering
the forest of Red Bark at the western foot of
Chimborazo, to fulfil my commission from the
Indian Government to procure seed and plants of
Red bark.
From Ambato to San Andres.
To Riobamba, where I remained till April 10, pur-
suing my preparations in conjunction with Dr.
James Taylor.
AMBATO, ETC.
From Riobamba to Mocha. (Struck deaf in left ear
on this journey.)
To Ambato.
Excursion to Cusatagua near Pillaro. (See map of
Llanganati Mountains to north-east of Ambato. )
To Banos to bathe in hot springs for my deafness.
Returned to Ambato.
THE BREAKDOWN. Woke up this morning paralysed
in my back and legs. From that day forth I was
never able to sit straight up, or to walk about
without great pain and discomfort, soon passing to
mortal exhaustion.
All this time under medical treatment at Ambato,
but with very little improvement of health.
[FinaL DEPARTURE FROM AMBATO, WHICH HAD BEEN HIS
une 12.
>) 13.
pei A=0:
» If:
Se al.
HEAD-QUARTERS FOR 24 YEARS|
Started for the Bark Forests of Chimborazo: by way
of Mocha to the Tambo of Chuyuipogyo.
Across Chimborazo to Guaranda.
At Guaranda.
On the way down the western declivity of Chim-
borazo. ‘This night slept in the forest.
RED BARK FORESTS OF CHIMBORAZO
To El Limon: a group of small cane-farms in the
region where the Red Bark still flourishes. The
streams that flow down the numerous valleys com-
bine into the little river Chasuan, which, in the
plain, enters the river Ventanas—an affluent of
the Guayaquil river.
260
1860.
June 18-
July—
Aug.—
Sept. 12.
99 2Q.
Wecuen
i Gy
29 27:
by) 3f-
NOTES OF A BOTANICn oe
From this date to the 12th of- September japan
Limon, superintending the work of getting plants
and seeds of Cvnchona succirubra. The seeds
were all gathered under my eye, and were dried,
sorted, and packed by myself. Partly on horse-
back, and partly dragging myself about on foot by
the aid of a long staff, I explored pretty thoroughly
the neighbourhood of our hut, and gathered
(especially) numerous fine ferns and mosses.
Left El Limon and crossed over into the valley of
Las ‘Tablas.
Over another ridge into the valley of San Antonio,
to the farm of ‘Tabacal, where I remained till the
28th gathering seeds of Red Bark.
GUAYAQUIL
Started for Guayaquil, and travelled down the valley
to Pozuelo.
From Pozuelo to Bodegas (on the river Guayaquil),
where I remained till October 6.
Down the river (by steamer) to Guayaquil. From
this date till November 24 at Guayaquil; then
started up the country to meet Mr. Cross coming
down with the Bark plants.
By steamer to Bodegas.
In canoe up river Ventanas to Caturama.
To Aguacatal, a cacao-farm above the village of
Ventanas. Here I remained until December 24,
putting together fifteen Ward’s cases, preparing a
raft to take them down to Guayaquil, and when
Mr. Cross arrived from the forest with the plants,
superintending the work of transferring them to
the cases, embarking the‘latter on the raft, etc.
Set out on our raft and this day reached a point
a few miles above Caracol.
Passed Caracol and Bodegas, and anchored in the
river Guayaquil.
Down the river.
Reached Guayaquil at noon.
Had the cases embarked on board the Pacific
steamer for Panama and England.
LX AM BATO 261
To Str William Hooker
AMBATO, March 12, 1860.
I have succeeded in hiring the forests producing
the Cascartlla roja after about ten times as much
correspondence as would have been necessary in
any civilised country, and I am now getting together
a staff of workmen (no easy task in these revolu-
tionary times) with which to enter the forest as soon
as the rains abate. I am also in treaty with the
owners of the woods near Loja which produce the
Cinchona condaminea; but as this species seems to
flower and fruit exactly at the same time as the
Cascarilla voja, and the localities of the two species
are fifteen days’ journey apart (under the most
favourable circumstances), it is plainly impossible
that I can see with my own eyes the seeds of both
species gathered, which is the only way to be sure
of faving the right sort. . .
REPORL ON THE EXPEDITION TO PROCURE SEEDS
AND PEANTS OR THE CIVCHONA SUCCIRUBRA
OR RED BARK TREE
Towards the end of the year 1859, I was entrusted by Her
Majesty’s Secretary of State for India with a commission to pro-
cure seeds and plants of the Red Bark tree, and I proceeded to
take the necessary steps for entering on its performance.
Within the ascertained limits of the true Red Bark it exists (or
rather existed up to a recent period) in all the valleys of the
Andes which debouch into the Guayaquilian plain. Many years
ago it was obtained in large quantities in the valley of Alaust,
below an Indian hamlet called Linje, on the northern side of the
Chanchan (nearly opposite to Puma-cocha, which is on the
southern side of the same stream), but it has long been exhausted
there.
262 NOTES OF AVBOd Nisa CHAP.
The Bark grounds, which still continue to be worked, form
part of five contiguous farms, called respectively El Morado,
Matiavi, Sinchig, Jalagua, and Salinas, whereof the two former
belong to the church of Guaranda, and the three latter (which
extend upwards to the paramos of Chimborazo and downwards
to the plain of Guayaquil) are the property of General and ex-
President Juan José Flores, who, after a banishment of fifteen
years, has lately returned to take the chief part in the recovery of
Guayaquil from a faction who would have given it up to Peru.
Only the high lands of those farms, where there is natural pastur-
age and ground suitable for the cultivation of potatoes and cereals,
have been turned to any account by the proprietors. The middle
part is dense, unbroken forest, and in the lower part, which pro-
duces the Red Bark, a good many poor people of mixed race from
the sierra, and a few liberated slaves from the plain, have formed
little cane-farms, without asking leave of the owners or paying
any rent. The farms belonging to General Flores have been for
some years leased to a Senor Cordovez, who resides at Ambato ;
and Dr. Francisco Neyra, notary public of Guaranda, rents the
farms of the church, but only so far as respects the bark they
produce. With these two gentlemen I had, therefore, to treat
for permission to take from the bark woods the seeds and plants
I wanted. At first they were unwilling to grant me it at any price,
but, after a good deal of parley, I succeeded in making a treaty
with them, whereby, on the payment of 400 dollars, I was allowed
to take as many seeds and plants as I liked, so long as I did not
touch the bark. ‘They also bound themselves to aid me in pro-
curing the necessary workmen and beasts of burden. ‘Through
the intervention of Dr. Neyra, who has throughout done all he
could to favour the enterprise, I engaged with his cascarilleros
(who all inhabit the village of Guanujo, adjacent to Guaranda)
that whilst they were procuring bark for him, they should also
seek seeds and plants for me.
From Dr. Neyra I ascertained that a site called Limon would
be the most suitable for the centre of my operations. ... At
Limon existed formerly the finest manchon of Red Bark ever
seen. It was all cut down many years ago, but I was informed
that shoots from the old roots had already grown to be stout little
trees, large enough to bear flowers and fruit, and that the squatters
(who are many of them cascarilleros of Guanujo), since they got
to know the value of the bark, had carefully preserved such trees
as were standing in their chacras or clearings. Messrs. Cordovez
and Neyra have made their depot for the bark about four leagues
lower down the valley, where a stream called Camaron, running
down the next transversal valley to the northward, joins the
Chasuan.
The intestine war still continued to rage, and the country was
oe THE CINCHONA FORESTS 263
divided into two factions, whereof one held Quito and the whole
of the Sierra, and the other Guayaquil and the low country. Both
maintained as large an army as they could raise in support of
their cause, and pressed into their ranks all the suitable men they
could lay hold on. Only those of pure Indian extraction were
exempt from forced military service; but, when the troops were
marching about, they continually seized on Indians to carry their
baggage and to drive laden beasts. . .
My preparations for entering the forest being completed, I was
awaiting the coming of the dry season, when a severe attack of
rheumatism so far disabled me, that I determined to delegate my
commission to Dr. James Taylor of Riobamba. Animated, how-
ever, by his assurance that in the warm forest I might expect to
recover the use of my limbs, I finally resolved to proceed thither
in his company.
We started from Ambato for the forest on the 11th of June.
Our road was the same as I had travelled the preceding year, until
reaching the paramo of Sanancajas beyond the village of Mocha,
where it turns to the right towards the southern shoulder of Chim-
borazo. In consequence of my having needed two long rests on
the way, night came on and found us still on the paramo. ‘Thin
clouds had enveloped Chimborazo most of the day, but towards
evening they gradually cleared away, and after sunset the majestic
dome was entirely uncovered, though a slender meniscus of cloud,
assuming exactly the form of the cope of the mountain, and still
illumined by the rays of the sun (which had set for us), hung for
some time like a “glory” over the monarch of the Andes. When
this at length melted away, the light reflected from the snow by a
Clear star-lit sky enabled our beasts to pick their way. It was
8 o’clock when we reached the tambo of Chuquipogyo, a solitary
house at between 12,000 and 13,000 feet of altitude. The rude
accommodation and the inhospitable climate offered no induce-
ment to a prolonged stay at Chuquipogyo, but as I was so much
exhausted as neither to be able to sleep nor on the following
morning to mount my horse, there was no alternative but to remain
there all the day and night of the r2th. At 7 A.M. of the 13th we
resumed our march. ‘The day was fortunately fine, and we had
only now and then a few drops of small rain and sleet, instead of
the snowstorms with which the traveller has too frequently to
contend in the pass of Chimborazo. The vegetation consisted
chiefly of hassocks of a Stipa and a Festuca, so that the general
aspect was that of a grey barren waste; but at short intervals we
crossed deep gullies whose sides were lined with mosses, and
sprinkled with calceolarias, lupines, and other pretty plants. ‘To-
wards noon we came out on the Arenal (the moraine of the
glacier), near the limit of all vegetation. In a hollow a little
below it was a marsh with a rivulet—one of the sources of the
264 NOTES OF Av BOT ANTS CHAP.
Pastasa—in which I saw, not without surprise, a bed of the large-
leaved Rumex, which is frequent in similar situations, at from
8000 to gooo feet. The Arenal consists of sand and fine gravel
of a pale yellow colour. In one place the road, for a considerable
distance, resembles a broad, smooth gravel-walk in England, so
that the only bit of really good road in Ecuador has been made
by nature’s hand on the crest of the Andes. The vegetation is
limited to scattered tufts, or rather hillocks, of a Valeriana, a
Viola, an Achyrophorus, a Werneria, a Plantago, a Geranium, a
Draba, a pretty silky-leaved Astragalus, and the elegant Szda
Lichinchensts, all of which (save the Astragalus) have rigid leaves
in the characteristic rosettes of super-alpine vegetation, and send
enormously thick roots deep down into the loose soil, although
even these do not secure them from being frequently torn up by
the violent winds and storms that sweep over them. My attention
was so much taken up with these interesting plants, and with the
immense mass Of snow on our right, and in tracing the downward
course of ancient lava-streams, which are as visible on Chimborazo
as on Cotopaxi and Tunguragua, that I scarcely felt the wind,
which swept us along like a gale at sea, and occasionally lifted
small fragments of gravel and hurled them at us. It is scarcely
necessary to state that the wind is here always easterly through
the day, getting up strong generally about 10 A.M., and rarely con-
tinuing to blow with equal force through the night and following
morning. Now and then it veers for a moment, and gives the
traveller a side blow, which, were he not wary, might unhorse
him.
We had left winter behind us on the eastern side of the Cor-
dillera, and on our first day’s journey, as we looked down the
deep valley of the Pastasa, we saw a mantle of dense cloud and
rain spread over the forest of Canelos. Even the eastern side of
Sanancajas was wet and muddy, but after passing Chuquipogyo
the road became nearly dry, and, on the western side of the
Cordillera, it was even inconveniently dusty. In the direction of
the Pacific not a cloud was visible, though the great distance and
the hazy horizon prevented our actually seeing the ocean. So
abrupt is the transition from the rainy season, which prevails on
the eastern side of the Cordillera simultaneously with the dry
season on the western.
The Arenal must be near a league across. As we descended
from it the whole mountain side became covered with flowers, and
nowhere have I seen alpine vegetation in such perfect state.
Gentiana cernua, with its large pendulous red flowers, formed
large patches, and was accompanied by three other species of the
same genus, with purple and blue flowers, by Drabas, and other
alpines. Still descending, the true alpines began to be mixed
with half shrubby Fuchsie, Calceolariz, Eupatoria, etc. Even
moO Lh CINCHONA FORESTS — 265
before reaching the zone where these genera grow in the greatest
luxuriance, and at less than 2000 feet below the Arenal, we came
on the first tree, a Polylepis (allied to our common burnet), form-
ing groves here and there along the declivity. The bark of this
tree resembles that of the birch in colour, and in its peeling off
in flakes; but if one could suppose an arborescent Aczena, it
would give a better idea of the pinnate silvery foliage. On the
Opposite side—not of Chimborazo, which is bare of trees, but of
its sister mountain Carguairazo—a Buddleia approaches nearest
the snow-line. In descending the same side of the Cordillera,
towards Pallatanga, ten leagues south of Chimborazo, a Podo-
carpus and a Berberis ascend higher than any other tree, while a
Polylepis (distinct from that of Chimborazo) ceases tooo feet
below them. On Chimborazo, on the contrary, the same Podo-
carpus fails a long way below the first-mentioned Polylepis. An
accurate discrimination of the species is therefore needed, before
we can compare their climatal distribution.
Still descending, various other trees began to appear, such as
Buddleiz, Myrcie, and especially an Araliacea, called from its
large palmate leaves (which are hoary beneath) Puma-maqui or
tiger's paw. Here and there the’ track rounded the heads of
quebradas, deep and dark, and full of low trees, which were laden
with mosses.
At about half-way down we came out on a narrow grassy ridge,
called the Ensillada (Saddleback), where several long low straw huts
had been recently erected for the accommodation of the soldiery
when marching that way. As we neared the encampment, four
raw-looking youths armed with lances rushed out and confronted
us, demanding our passports. We had none to show, but our
antagonists did not look very formidable, and a shot from one of
our revolvers would probably have put them to flight, had I not
been furnished with a weapon which I have found far safer and
more efficacious in such contingencies, namely, a bottle of strong
aguardiénte, a taste of which dispelled all opposition to our pro-
gress, and also served to induce the guardians of the pass to boil
us water for making coffee.
Below the Ensillada we came on steeply-inclined strata of
schists, across and down which we went on stumbling for at least
a couple of hours; for, as the track runs over their projecting and
jagged edges, which no pains have been taken to smooth down,
we passed them not without inconvenience and danger. At this
stage of our journey we became enveloped in cloud, which filled
all the valley of Guaranda, so that we could thenceforth only
discern objects near at hand.
We reached Guaranda just after nightfall, having travelled
eleven weary leagues from Chuquipogyo. Guaranda is a rather
neat little town, with good tiled houses built of adobes, and stands
266 NOTES OF AlTBOTANISs CHAP.
on ground which slopes down to the right bank of the Chimbo,
at an elevation of about gooo feet. As it 1s on the main road
leading from Guayaquil to the interior, it presents in time of peace
a very lively aspect in the dry season, when it is constantly full
of travellers and beasts of burden ; but when we reached it there
were not the least signs of traffic, and only soldiers were to be
seen in the streets. ‘The temperature is slightly warmer than that
of Quito, and the adjacent hills are grassy, where not under culti-
vation. From the little I could see of the indigenous vegetation,
it appeared interesting. A large Thalictrum was abundant, as
was also a sarmentose Labiate, with spikes of secund scarlet
flowers, and.a Tagetes, called, aptly enough, Allpa-anis (earth
aniseed), from its scent and its lowly habit.
I was detained several days at Guaranda, partly in purchasing
provisions for the forest, including an ox to be taken alive to our
rendezvous, and partly in the vain attempt to procure licence for
our cascarilleros (who had lately all been enrolled either in the
line or the militia) to proceed to the forest; but I had to con-
tent myself with the assurance that, until the country was de-
livered from its present straits, not a single citizen could be
spared for any other service. Only one of the cascarilleros, whose
rancho we were to occupy, actually accompanied us to Limon,
whether with leave or without I never knew, and he was there too
much occupied in distilling cane-brandy, and in drinking no small
portion of it himself, to be of the slightest use to us in seeking
plants and seeds. Through Dr. Neyra’s intervention, I secured
the services of four Indians of Guanujo, and they proved of the
greatest use to us, especially after we began to rear the Bark
plants.
As far as Guaranda, two of our boxes had been carried by each
beast of burden, but thenceforward, on account of the straitness
of the path, they had to be carried singly. On the steep, narrow,
and slippery tracks which traverse the western slope of the
Quitonian Andes, the beasts of burden are chiefly bulls, called
cabrestillos, whose cloven hoofs enable them to descend with
greater security than even mules. - Our provision of potatoes,
peas, and barley-meal, etc., had to be carried in sacks so small
that two of them placed on the back of each cabrestillo did not
project beyond the animal’s sides.
We set forth from Guaranda on the 17th of June, the direction
of our route being first northerly, as far as the adjacent village of
Guanujo, and then north-west to the pass of Llullundengo, on a
ridge of Chimborazo, nearly in front of the Ensillada (from which
the deep, wide valley of Guaranda separates it), and at a height
of about 12,000 feet. Having surmounted this, we entered on
the most precipitous and dangerous descent I have ever passed.
The track leads straight down a narrow ridge, varied at wide
x1 TO THE CINCHONA FORESTS 267
intervals by level steppes, rarely exceeding a hundred yards across.
The soil, from the summit down to the very plain, is a yellowish
or reddish loam, wherein the sandy element prevails in some parts
and in others the clayey, and it is of immense thickness, as we
could see in the deep gullies worn in the mountain side by the
rains and in the landslips. Angular masses of rock are sparingly
embedded in it and scattered on the surface, but rounded pebbles
are rare.
The vegetation in the pass consisted of Vaccinia (especially
V. Mortina, Benth.), Gaultheriz, Melastomacez, Composite, etc.,
disposed in compact shrubberies, with intervening grassy glades.
But we had scarcely turned the ridge before the forest became
dense and continuous, at first low and bushy, but increasing in
height at every step. At about g500 feet we came on the first
Cascarilla Serrana or Hill Bark, and it accompanied us down-
wards to, perhaps, 8000 feet. It is called indifferently Cuchicara
and Pata de Gallinazo, which I believe to be terms merely in-
dicative of the relative facility with which the bark may be stripped
off in different individuals, either of the same or of various
species.
At 3 P.M. we reached the Rio de Tablas, a considerable stream
of clear water, foaming over large stones ; its roar had been audible
for the last hour of our steep descent. We crossed it, and ona
deserted clearing of some two acres drew up for the night, uniting
all our rubber ponchos to make a fall-to roof, to shield us from
the night dews. The animals were turned loose to graze on the
scanty grass in the clearing and on the leaves of a Chusquea on
the edge of the forest.
I have nowhere seen Melastomacez so abundant as in the
forest surrounding our encampment. One species grows to a
stout tree 4o feet high, and bears large pendulous panicles (a
novel feature to me in this order) of blood-red flowers, with large
turgid yellow anthers. A lower spreading tree, apparently a
Pleroma, bore numerous large violet flowers. Other smaller
sarmentose species had also large rose or violet flowers. Alto-
gether, I have never seen so gay a forest vegetation, except on the
river Uaupés.
We were still in a rather cool region, but the night was dry and
the wind very slight, so that we had not to complain of cold. After
an early breakfast the next morning, we followed our way, which
became still narrower and rougher as we proceeded. We had to
climb the high ridge separating the valley of the Rio de Tablas
from that of the Chasuan, and then to descend to the latter river,
but there were many subsidiary ridges, with intervening hollows,
or sometimes nearly level crossings (called travesias). ‘The track
in the precipitous ascents and descents is mostly a gully worn
in the soft loamy soil by the transit of men and beasts, to the
268 NOTES OF A BOTANTSS CHAP.
depth in some places of ro feet, and so strait that the traveller, to
save his legs from being crushed, must needs throw them on his
horse’s neck. Here and there a large stone sticks out, forming a
high step, in descending which there is risk of both horse and
rider turning a summerset. In the travesias there is:a consider-
able depth of black tenacious greasy mould, worn by the equable
step of beasts of burden into transverse ridges (called camellones,
from their resemblance to the humps on a camel’s back), with
alternating furrows from 1 to 3 feet deep. This mould is formed
in great part of the decayed leaves of the Sura, a bamboo
of the genus Chusquea,! which forms almost impenetrable thickets,
and whose arched stems and intricate branches, overhanging our
way, much impeded our progress. In such places there was still
a good deal of water and mud, for the rainy season was only just
over in the forest.
At 6000 feet we lost the Wax palm (Ceroxylon andicola, H. et
B.), which had accompanied us, though growing very sparsely,
from about the upper limit of the Hill Bark. It descends to the
same altitude on the eastern side of the Cordillera. Lower down,
palms began to be tolerably abundant, but of few species. . . .
At a very little below 4000 feet we came out on the first
chacras at Limon, where I almost immediately noted, and with
no small satisfaction, a group of three Red Bark trees, each
consisting of from two to four stems of 30 feet high, springing
from old stools, and bearing a small quantity of fruit. We had
still about two miles of gentle descent to the trapiche (cane-mill)
destined for our habitation, and we reached it early in the after-
noon, in the midst of a dense fog.
The trapiche stood on a narrow ridge running eastward
and westward, sloping gradually on the northern side to the
Chasuan, distant half a mile, and very abruptly, or 200 feet
perpendicular in about 300 yards, to a tributary rivulet on the
southern side. It was merely a long, low shed, and a sketch
of its internal arrangements may serve for that of all the other
trapiches, of which there were about a dozen at Limon. About
two-thirds of its length was occupied by the rude machinery and
adjuncts of the cane-mill. The remaining third had an upper
story with a flooring of bamboo planks, half of it open at the
sides, and the other half with a bamboo wall about 6 feet high,
not reaching the roof in any part of it. This was our dormitory,
and it was reached by a ladder—merely a tree trunk, with rude
notches for steps. On the ground floor was the kitchen, with a
wall of rough planks of raft-wood, placed by no means in juxta-
} The Chusquez are bamboos peculiar te the hills, with solid stems, rarely
exceeding 30 feet in height, and not preserving an erect position for more than
a few feet from the ground.
oo
oe IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 260
position, but not so wide apart that a dog or a pig could have
got through the interstices. The whole fabric was, therefore,
abundantly ventilated, and only too frequently filled with fog, as
we found to our cost, in coughs and aching limbs, and in mouldy
garments, saddles, etc.
Having reposed a day at Limon, Dr. Taylor went on with my
horses two days’ journey to Ventanas, hoping to find Mr. Cross
there and to bring him up. During his absence I had to look
after killing the ox and drying the beef, and to repair our dwelling,
which was sadly fallen to decay, especially as to the roof. I
therefore set the Indians to drag bamboos and palm-leaves out
of the forest, with which we patched up the-hut as well as we
could. I visited also all the Bark trees known to exist within
a short distance, and was well content to see on many of them
a good crop of capsules, which had already nearly reached
their full size on the finest trees; on other trees, however, there
were only very young capsules, and even a good many flowers,
so that I might have obtained at least thirty good flowering
specimens; but, wishing to gather as many seeds as possible,
I dried only a couple of specimens, which I had afterwards cause
to regret, for not one of the late-flowering panicles produced
ripe capsules. I learnt from the inhabitants that the trees had
been covered with blossom in the latter part of April and begin-
ning of May.
When Dr. Taylor had been ten days at Ventanas, a brief note
from Mr. Mocatta was left at Guaranda by the Spanish minister
(on his way from Guayaquil to Quito), informing me that Mr.
Cross had been taken suddenly ill, when about to start for
Ventanas. I therefore sent to recall Dr. Taylor, and, after his
return to Limon, our operations were confined to visiting the Bark
trees daily, which extended through a zone of about four miles in
breadth, and to collecting and studying the accompanying vegeta-
tion. As we had a fair share of sun towards the end of June, I
was in hopes the fruit would speedily ripen ; but nearly all through
the month of July the weather was cool, with a good deal of mist
and fog, so that the capsules scarcely increased in size, many fell
off, and some were attacked by a maggot and curled up. On the
tree which bore most capsules they began to turn mouldy, the
mould being not fungi but rudimentary lichens. I began to fear
we should get no ripe seeds, and as the seeds had been especially
recommended to me in my instructions from England, it may be
imagined how severe was my feeling of disappointment. I had
another motive for fearing the same result. The people of Limon
had got a notion that I should buy the seeds of them, and one
morning, when I made my round among the trees, I found that
two of them had been stripped of every panicle, undoubtedly by
some one who calculated on selling me the seeds. This was very
270 NOTES OF AUBOTANIS# CHAP.
provoking, for the seeds were far from ripe, and all the rest might
be destroyed in the same way, so I immediately went round to
the inhabitants and informed them that the seeds would be of no
value to me unless I gathered them myself; and I offered a
gratuity to the owners of the chacras where there were trees in
fruit to allow no one to approach the trees except myself and Dr.
Taylor. This had the desired effect, and I do not think a single
capsule was molested afterwards.
Whilst Dr. Taylor was at Ventanas, the troops of the Pro-
visional Government of Quito began to march down from the
Sierra to attack the forces which held the low country, and they
selected the route by Limon and Ventanas, along which an army
had never been known to pass. For six weeks we were kept in
continual alarm by the passing of troops, and it needed all our
vigilance to prevent our horses and goods being stolen; indeed,
one of my horses was carried off, though I afterwards recovered
it. It was now clear that, unless there had been two of us, both
independent of the political feuds of the country, the enterprise
must have fallen through. All our provisions had to be procured
from Guaranda, and, as they soon deteriorated in a moist, warm
climate, whenever our stock got low Dr. Taylor had to take my
horses and an Indian and go all the long distance to Guaranda to
fetch more. .. . About half a day’s journey down the valley
there were a good many plantains on a deserted farm, and at
twice the distance a negro had a fine plantation of them, from
which I two or three times got up a mule-load; but the hungry
soldiery soon made an end of them, and then even that resource
was cut off.
The view from Limon takes in a vast extent of country, both
upwards and downwards, and the whole is unbroken forest, save
towards the source of the Chasuan, where a lofty ridge rises above
the region of arborescent vegetation and is crowned by a small
breadth of grassy paramo. Nowhere are there any bare precipices,
and a very steep declivity forming an angle of 60° with the
horizon, appearing far away up the Chasuan, is as densely wooded
as any other part. The opening at Limon, it will be understood,
is purely artificial.
The crystalline waters of the Chasuan and its tributaries, in
that part of their course where the Red Bark grows, run over a
black or dull blue, shining, and very compact trachyte, which
would seem to be the foundation of the Quitonian Andes, for it
appears almost everywhere in the lower valleys, on both the eastern
and western declivities. In the river Pastasa it occurs at from
3000 up to 7000 feet. Generally it is exposed to view only in the
bed of the streams, or on their banks, where it often rises into
rugged and fantastic cliffs. Over the trachyte at Limon there is
XXI Pierenre CrNCHONA- FORESTS © 271
to be seen in the bottom of the valleys a fine-grained ferruginous
sandstone of a deep brown colour, in thick strata, and usually in
large detached masses, lying either horizontally or variously tilted
up. I suppose, therefore, that, so far from having been deposited
over the trachyte, it is merely the remains of a large bed of rock
which once extended conformably over the whole region, and has
been shivered and dislocated by the upheaval of the trachyte
itself. It seems the same sort of rock as exists about the base of
Tunguragua, and forms the lofty cliffs on the southern side of that
volcano, where the cataract of Guandisagua comes down at three
bounds from the edge of the snow to the warm valley of Capil, in
which grow oranges and the sugar-cane. I have never been able
ie fimelamy trace of fossils in this rock. .... Nowhere in the
Quitonian Andes have I seen the stratified rocks—lmestones,
friable sandstones, and fossiliferous shales—all, I believe, belong-
ing to the lias formation, which constitute the eastern declivity of
the Andes of Peru,.or, at least, of the Province of Maynas. No
Bark tree was seen growing on rock of any kind. ‘The soil at
Limon is the same deep loamy alluvial deposit, with very few
stones intermixed, as we had seen from Llullundengo downwards,
nor does a bit of rock crop out in the whole of the descent... .
The northern and eastern sides of the trees had borne most
flowers, and, except on one tree of more open growth than the
rest, scarcely a capsule ripened on their southern and western
sides. ‘These phenomena are explained by the fact that, in the
summer season, the trees receive most sun from the east and
north, for the mornings are generally clear and sunny, whilst the
afternoons are almost invariably foggy, and the sun’s declination
is northerly. Another notable circumstance is that the trees
standing in open ground—pasture, cane- field, etc. —are far
healthier and more luxuriant than those growing in the forest,
where they are hemmed in and partially shaded by other trees,
and that, while many of the former had flowered freely, the latter
were, without exception, sterile. This plainly shows that, although
the Red Bark may need shade whilst young and tender, it really
requires (like most trees) plenty of air, light, and room wherein to
develop its proportions.
The cascarilleros have found out that the bark is worth money,
but neither they nor the greater part of the inhabitants of Ecuador
have any correct idea of the use that is made of it in foreign
countries ; the prevalent opinion being that a permanent coffee- or
chocolate-coloured dye (still a desideratum in Ecuador) is extracted
from it. I explained to the people of Limon how it yielded the
precious quinine which was of such vast use in medicine; but I
_afterwards heard them saying one to another, “It is all very fine
for him to stuff us with such a tale; of course 4e won’t tell us how
2D NOTES OF AXBOTRANIS# CHAP.
the dye is made, or we should use it ourselves for our ponchos and
bayetas, and not let foreigners take away so much of it.” There
is to this day the same repugnance to using the bark as a febri-
fuge as Humboldt remarked sixty years ago, and as exists also in
New Granada, where Cedron and various other substances are
preferred to Quina. I think I can explain this repugnance. The
inhabitants of South America, although few of them have heard
of Dr. Cullen, have a theory which refers all diseases to the
influence of either eat or cold, and (by what seems to them a
simple process of reasoning) their remedies to agents of the
opposite complexion ; thus, if an ailment have been brought on
by “calor,” it must be cured~with “frescos”; lotitstm toy =. dite: 4
with “calidos.” Confounding cause and effect, they suppose all
fever to proceed from “calor.” Now they consider the cascarilla
a terribly strong “calido,” and justly ; so, by their theory (which
is the reverse of Hahnemann’s), its use could only aggravate the
symptoms of fever... .
Even at Guayaquil there is such a general disinclination to the
use of quinine that, when the physicians there have occasion to
prescribe it, they indicate it by the conventional term “alcaloide
véjetal,” which all the apothecaries understand to mean “sulphate
of quinine,” while the patient is kept in happy ignorance that he
is taking that deadly substance.
The lowest site of the Red Bark at Limon is at an elevation of
2450 feet above the sea, where the Chasudn receives the rivulet
already mentioned as running below our hut. It is precisely the
point where the track from Ventanas leaves the Chasuan (along
whose margin it had run thus far, with a gentle ascent from the
plain) and begins to ascend the steep cuesta separating the
Chasuan from its tributary, the ascent being 350 feet in the first
500 yards; so that where the real ascent of the Andes begins there
also begins the Red Bark. At San Antonio, however, I saw a
tree at a height of no more than 2300 feet; and, if I might believe
my informants, trees of immense size have been cut down at
points whose height I estimate at barely over 2000 feet. Follow-
ing the track leading to Guaranda, the last Bark trees growing by
the roadside are at a height of 3680 feet; but leaving the track,
and following. the hill-side on the left bank of the Limon, there are
Bark trees scattered about for a distance of a league, and up to a
height of near 4500 feet. On the opposite ridge, or that separating
the Limon from the Chasuan, there are also several trees ascend-
ing to a still greater elevation, or nearly to 5000 feet; but I did
not take the barometer to these latter, which were all sterile, in
consequence of growing in lofty forest.
The cascarilleros do not usually go in quest of Bark trees
before August, there being generally less fog in that and the
following month than at any other period of the year. ... The
weep tN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 273
trees being cut down and the roots dug out, the bark is stripped
off much in the same way as oak bark in England, but no other
tool than the machéte is used. . . . For drying the bark a stage
3 feet high is erected, called a tendal. Care must be taken
that the flame from the fire beneath the tendal does not reach
the bark, and if rain be apprehended the whole has to be roofed
over. When the bark is perfectly dry, they have only to convey
it to the depot at Camaron and receive their twenty dollars per
quintal, which is the price usually paid them by Messrs. Cordovez
and Neyra; or rather, they have generally received the value in
advance, according to the custom of the country.
In the valleys of the Chasuan and Limon I saw about 200
trees of Red Bark standing. Out of the whole number, only two
or three were saplings which had not been disturbed ; all the rest
grew from old stools, whose circumference averaged from 4 to 5
feet. I was unable to find a single young plant under the trees,
although many of the latter bore signs of having flowered in
previous years. ‘This was explained by the flowering trees grow-
ing uniformly in open places, either in cane-fields which had been
frequently weeded or in pastures where cattle had grazed and
trodden about. The young plants, which I had been assured I
should find abundantly, proved to be either stolons or seedlings
(very few of the latter) of the worthless Ciuchona magutfolia,
which grows plentifully at Limon, and must have fruited during
the rainy season, as the capsules were all burst open when I
arrived there.
Cinchona succirubra is a very handsome tree, and, in looking
out over the forest, I could never see any other tree at all com-
parable to it for beauty. Across the narrow glen below our hut,
and at nearly the same altitude, there was a large old stool from
which sprang several shoots, only one of which rose to a tree,
while the rest formed a bush at its base. This tree was 50 feet
high, branched from about one-third of its height, and the coma
formed a symmetrical though elongated paraboloid. It had
never flowered, but was so densely leafy that not a branch could
be seen; and the large, broadly oval, deep green and shining
leaves, mixed with decaying ones of a blood-red colour, gave the
tree a most striking appearance. C. magnifolia, called here
Cascarillo macho (male bark), grows rapidly to be a large tree.
I saw one which must have been over 80 feet high, and I cut
down a young tree which measured 60 feet. Saplings of 15 to 20
feet have a very noble appearance, from the large heart-shaped
leaves, little short of a yard long; but in full-grown trees the
ramification is so sparse and irregular, and the leaves are so much
mutilated by caterpillars, that all beauty is lost. This species
sends out stolons from the root, which sometimes form a matted
VOL. II T
274 NOTES OF A BOTANIST —3eaee
bed, looking like a growth of seedlings. I have not observed the
same peculiarity in any other Cinchona.
I proceed now to give some account of the other indigenous
inhabitants of the Red Bark woods, animal and vegetable.
The Andine Bear, chiefly inhabiting the middle wooded
region, descends to the lower limit of the Red Bark. On the
eastern side of the Andes it rarely goes as low as 3000 feet.
The Jaguar (4e/s onca), chiefly inhabiting the plain, does not
yet seem to have climbed as high as Limon, but at Tarapoto, in
the Andes of Maynas, it was abundant up to more than 3000 feet
elevation. The Puma or Leon (4é/s concolor) exists not only in
the plain but throughout the wooded slopes of the Andes; it is
only too abundant in the roots of the Cordillera, and I have seen
its footsteps on recent snow at a height of 13,000 feet on the high
mountains to the eastward of Riobamba. ‘‘ Puma” is the Indian
generic name for every sort of tiger, but the Spanish colonists
limit it to the red tiger, and call the spotted jaguar “tigre.” Bears
never troubled our hut, but we had two nocturnal visits from the
puma. On one of these occasions the puma seized and was carry-
ing off a little dog, but a very large and fine black dog sprang on
the puma and forced him to let go his held. © - : Whersereamis
of an animal seized by a tiger are about the most doleful sounds
one ever hears in the forest, and after being once heard their
cause can never be mistaken.
The Wild Pig (Peccary) frequently ascends to Limon, where
there are also two or three smaller pachyderms.
Two sorts of Monkeys are common, one of them almost as
noisy as the howling monkey, but of a different genus. I do not
know of any monkey which ascends to the temperate region of
the Andes.
A pretty red-headed Parrot, so small that it might be taken for
a paroquet, arrived in immense flocks about the end of July and
took up its summer residence in the Red Bark woods. The same
species abounds in the valley of Alausi, where it makes sad havoc
of the maize crops, and ascends by day to 8500 feet, but always
descends to Puma-cocha to roost. Along with the parrots came
Toucans of two species.
Snakes are very frequent, and some of them venomous.
Limon seems to be the highest point to which the Equis ascends,
a large and deadly snake which is a great pest in the plains of
Guayaquil; it takes its name from being marked with crosses (like
the letter. “x 7) all along the back.
Butterflies I have rarely seen in greater number, and they
include at least four species of those large blue butterflies
(probably species of Morpho) which, on the eastern side, are
seldom seen above the hot region. Cockroaches, too, ascend
mee Trib CINCHONA FORESTS 275
higher than I have elsewhere observed. We had four or five
species in our hut, none of them large, and one very minute
species which often damaged my fresh specimens of plants by
mutilating the flowers. It is so abundant at Camaron, 1000
feet lower down, that it fills the pease and barley meal and
renders them uneatable. Ants are far more frequent than in the
temperate region, but less so than in the plains. House flies are
as great a nuisance as at Ambato, and though fleas are not quite
sO numerous as in the cool sandy highlands, there were oe plenty
of them (as the Spaniards say) “ be el gasto.”
As above indicated, Limon was once entirely clad with forests,
in which respect it contrasts strongly with the valley of Alausi,
where the slopes on both sides are covered with grass, even down
to the hot region, and only the lateral valleys and the plateaux are
wooded. I cannot doubt that the difference arises from the
former being situated in the roots of a snowy mountain, while
there is no perpetual snow within a long distance of the latter. I
have observed the same difference, referable to the same cause,
along the eastern side of the Andes. After passing the valley of
San Antonio, to the southward, there is this intermixture of woods
and pajonales all the way to the frontier of Peru. As would
naturally be expected, the vegetation at Limon is far more
luxuriant, and the abundance of ferns, especially in the narrower
valleys, is in striking contrast to their scarcity at Puma-cocha.
Tree-ferns, of five species, are everywhere scattered in the forest,
and add a feature of beauty to the scenery quite wanting in the
valley of Alausi.
I estimate the average height of the virgin forest at Limon at
go feet; but, as everywhere else in the tropics, there are here and
there trees which stand out far above the mass of the forest. The
monarch of the forest at Limon is an Artocarpea, which, from the
leaves and from flowers picked up beneath the trees, I have little
hesitation in referring to Coussapoa. ‘The following are the
dimensions of a tree of this species which I found prostrate in a
meeemt clearing. Length 120 feet, not including the terminal
branches, which had been lopped off, still 20 inches in cir¢um-
ference, and which would have made it at least 20 feet more.
Circumference at 10 feet from the ground 12 feet 4 inches; from
that point narrow buttresses were sent off to the ground on all
sides. At 25 feet the trunk was forked, and the ramification was
thenceforth dichotomous, at a narrow angle.
No other tree reaches the dimensions of the Artocarpea. A
Lauracea, called Quebra-hacha (Break-axe), rises to 110 to 120
feet; its exceedingly hard wood is the usual material for the
cylinders of the trapiches. My collection contains unfortunately
very tew Of the larger trees. On the western slope of the
276 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
Quitonian Andes there is a great burst of blossom at the com-
mencement of the dry season, that is, towards the end of May;
and another of less extent after the rains of the autumnal equinox ;
so that, as my visit fell between those two epochs, many of the
trees were in the same unsatisfactory state as the Hill Bark already
mentioned, and others had not yet begun to flower. Besides, I
should hardly, under any circumstances, have been at the trouble
of cutting down a large tree for the sake of only two or three
specimens ; and, after we began to prepare the Bark plants, the
Indians could hardly be spared for any other service.
In proceeding to give a classified list of the plants collected
and observed, I shall generally limit myself to indicating their
natural order. In order that my attention might not be called
away from the main object of the enterprise, I collected very few
(often unique) specimens of each plant. . . . The general char-
acter of the vegetation may, however, be sketched very intelligibly
with very little reference to species.
[The following account of the vegetation of the
Red Bark forests has been reduced by the omission
of all passages not directly bearing on the subject,
or dealing only with botanical details. It is, how-
ever, so full of information on points of geographical
distribution and of examples of unusual _plant-
structure, and also contains so many short descrip-
tions of strange or beautiful flowers still unknown
to our horticulturists, as to make it both interesting
and instructive to all who study or appreciate the
beauty and variety of the vegetation of tropical
regions. It is therefore, with these ‘excepmons.
printed entire. |
SKETCH OF THE VEGETATION OF THE RED BARK
FORESTS OF CHIMBORAZO (alt. 2000 to 5000 feet)
Gramine@, 4.1—A good many species of this order were
observed, but, as is mostly the case in the dry season, nearly all
partially dried up and out of flower; besides that, even in the
1 The number affixed to most of the orders indicates how many species of
that order I gathered in a perfect state.
sx: IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 277
recesses of the forest, they were sought out and cropped by the
starving animals. After the bamboo above spoken of, the Arrow-
cane (Gynerium saccharoides) is the most notable grass, and
forms considerable beds, especially near streams. This species
is abundant enough on low shores and islands of the Amazon,
but it has nowhere spread far from the river-bank, nor (so far as
I can ascertain) is it found wild on any of the tributaries of that
river, but those which rise in the Andes. ... Even on the
Amazon it looks dwindled, and rarely exceeds 18 or 20 feet high ;
but on reaching the roots of the Andes of Maynas, one begins to
see this noble grass in its true proportions. . . . It attains its
maximum of development on stony springy declivities, at an
elevation of about 1500 feet above the sea, where a forest of
Arrow-cane, with its tall slender stems of 30 to 4o feet, each
supporting a fan-shaped coma of distichous leaves, and a long-
stalked thyrse of rose and silver flowers waving in the wind, is
truly a grand sight. The longest stem I ever measured was one
I met a man carrying on his shoulder at Tarapoto. From that
stem had been cut away the leaves and peduncle, and the base
of the stem, which is generally beset by stout-arched exserted
roots (serving as buttresses), to a height of 1 to 3 feet; yet the
residue was 37 feet long, so that the entire length must have been
at least 45 feet.
The other grasses accompanying the Red Bark comprise
several of those rampant forest Panica which thread among
a@jacent branehes to a height of 15 feet or more. The long
internodes serve as tubes for tobacco pipes and for other similar
uses. There are also two broad-leaved Gamalotes of the same
genus. Of grasses frequent in the hot plains I noted only
Dactyloctenium Argyptiacum and Paspalum conjugatum.
Cyperacee, 1.—This order is scarce, both in individuals and
species. The half-dozen species observed belong chiefly to
Scleria and Isolepis.
Aracee, 4.—As abundant and varied as in the forests of
Hye’ plains. An- arborescent species,’ called Casimin by the
inhabitants, grows everywhere, even on hills where there is little
moisture. ‘The stems reach ro feet, and are sometimes thicker
than the thigh, though so soft that a very slight stroke of a
cutlass suffices to sever them. ‘The small spathes are fascicled
in the axils of the leaves, but of all that I opened the contents
were so injured by earwigs and other insects that it was impos-
sible to ascertain the structure of the flowers. . . . Species of
Anthurium and Philodendron are frequent, and their deeply-cloven
or perforated leaves often assume grotesque forms. One very
beautiful climbing Aroidea, with shaggy petioles and _ leaves
streaked with deep violet above, purple beneath, I could never
find in flower.
278 NOTES OF A BOTA Nisa CHAP.
Cyclanthacee. —'Three scandent species of Carludovica, all
with bifid leaves.
Palmacee.— Frequent enough, but of few species. The Cadi
or Ivory palm is everywhere dispersed, and is precisely the same
species as I saw at Puma-cocha. I gathered and analysed the
male inflorescence, but the stripping off the fronds for thatch is
unfavourable to the development of the fruit, which I never saw
in a perfect state. A very prickly Bactris, 20 feet high, with five
or six stems from a root, grows here and there; and in shady
places three or four Geonome are frequent. ‘The Euterpe grows
chiefly at the upper limit of the Red Bark. A noble Attalea
(called Cumbi and Palma real) extends up the valley of San
Antonio to the lower limit of the Bark region. It has a slight
beard to the petiole.
Bromeliacee.—Many species are perched about on the trees,
but none of striking aspect. The presence or absence of this
family affords no indication of climate on the equator, for trees
of Buddleia and Polylepis, at the upper limit of arborescent
vegetation, are as thickly hung with a Bromeliacea as any trees
on the Amazon.
Amaryliidee, 2.—Both herbaceous twiners, the one a Bomarea,
with pendulous umbels of showy flowers, calyx red, corolla white,
with violet spots; an order, so far as my experience goes, entirely
absent from equinoctial plains, but tolerably abundant in the
temperate and cool regions of the Andes.
~ Musacee.—Heliconia, two species.
Zingiberacee.—Cossus, three species. This is about the
highest point at which I have seen any Cossus or Heliconia, two
genera frequent in the plains.
Marantacee.—Two or three species of Maranta were observed.
Orchidacee, 28. — 'Tolerably abundant, but comprising few
handsome species. Most epiphytal Orchids love light, and in
the dense lofty forest they are rarely seen, and often inaccessible,
for they grow on the upper branches of large trees, and descend
to the lower branches only on the margin of wide streams, where
the whole of one side of the trees is exposed to the light. At
Limon, however, in ancient clearings, now become pastures,
where a few trees of the primitive forest have been left, and
where others have here and there sprung up, despite the treading
about of cattle, the branches are laden with Orchids and
Vacciniums ; and although none of the former be of remarkable
beauty, yet they are in so great variety, and there is such a charm
in seeing them on the rugged mossy trees in their native woods,
that to me they were always objects of interest. The finest
Orchid, as to its flowers, is an Odontoglossum, with large
chocolate-coloured flowers, margined with yellow. As respects
foliage, a fairy Stelis (S. calodyction, MSS.), with roundish pale
eee IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 279
green leaves, beautifully reticulated with the purple veins, far
excels every other plant seen in the Cinchona woods. I found
but a single tuft, almost buried in moss on the trunk of a tree.
An Orchid (genus unknown), with thick coriaceous leaves, curi-
ously spotted with white—a rare feature in epiphytal Orchids—
was discovered by Mr. Cross. Very remarkable was an Oncidium,
with numerous peduncles, 1o feet long, twining round one
another and on adjacent plants. Besides the Orchids growing
on trees, a good many species, allied to Spiranthes, grow on the.
earth and on decayed logs.
The 28 Orchids gathered in flower are, perhaps, scarcely a
third of the whole number observed. On the slopes of the
Andes some Orchid or other is in flower all through the year, and
almost every species has its distinct epoch for flowering.
Commelynacee.—Three species of Commelyna seen, chiefly
near streams and in cultivated places.
Pontederiace@, 1.—A small creeping plant, with white or very
pale lilac flowers, probably a Pontederia, in moist springy situations
by the Chasuan.
Dioscoreacea.—Only the male plant seen of a Dioscorea.
Smilacee, 2.—Species of Smilax, both with roundish stems
and a few prickles.
Guetacee, 1.—A Gnetum (G. ¢rinerve, MSS.), apparently
parasitic, and remarkable for its three-ribbed leaves. It is the
first species of this genus I have seen in the hills, though Gneta
are common enough in the plains, and especially on the Rio
Negro, where the kernel of the fruit is eaten roasted.
Myricacee, 1.—A wax-bearing Myrica, which descends to
2000 feet on open beaches of the Rio San Antonia, but was not
observed by the Chasuan. ‘The same or a very similar species
grows on wide gravelly beaches of the Pastasa, Morona, and other
rivers which descend the eastern slope of the Andes, and a good
deal of wax is obtained from its fruit, principally by the Jibaro
Indians, who sell it to traders from Quito, Ambato, etc., under
the name of ‘Cera de laurél” or laurel wax.
Urticaceé, 2.—Two or three fruticose Pilee were observed,
but the only plant gathered was a tree 25 feet high (growing by
the Rio San Antonio), which seems a species of Sponia, a genus
placed by some authors in Ulmacee.
Moracee.—Here and there grows a parasitical Ficus, but the
species seemed much fewer than I have observed in other similar
localities.
Artocarpee.—None gathered, although, as above remarked,
the tallest tree of the forest belongs to this order. Two Cecropiz
are not infrequent, and another tree, with a tall white trunk and
large hoary pedatifid leaves, looking quite like a species of the
280 NOTES OF A BOLANISS Se
same genus, extends up the slopes of the mountains to 8000 feet,
and has its lower limit above that of the Cinchona; but as I have
never seen its flowers, and as the Cecropiz are apparently confined
to the hot and warm regions, I suppose it may be generically
distinct.
Euphorbiaceé, 3.—The species gathered comprise an Acalypha,
a Phyllanthus, and a small tree of unknown genus. . .
Caliitrichacee.—A Callitriche, in pools by the Rio San Antonio.
Monimiacee.—Three species of Citrosma are frequent.
Mentspermacee.—A woody twiner of this order was noted,
probably an Abuta, but without flower or fruit.
Cucurbitacee, 8.—Plants of this family are abundant, and,
besides the eight species gathered, some others were seen in a
barren state. I gathered two Anguriz, with trifoliolate leaves, —
and the characteristic scarlet flowers of the genus. One plant,
apparently of this order, puzzled me much, for the woody stems,
partly twining and partly climbing by means of radicles, and no
thicker than packthread, bore a bunch of slender flowérs (calyx
scarlet, corolla yellow) near the base; but though I pulled down
some stems of enormous length, I could see no traces of leaves
on them. At length I succeeded in gettmg down san semtiwe
stem, 40 feet long (by no means one of the longest), which had
a couple of trifoliate leaves near the apex.
Begoniacee, 4.—Two climbing and two terrestrial species.
Of the latter, one is a large coarse plant to feet high, with leaves
resembling those of Heracleum giganteum. I have gathered the
same, or a very similar species, on the eastern side of the
Cordillera. One of the climbing species is very ornamental, from
its long pinnate shoots bearing a profusion of roseate flowers and
generally purplish leaves. This genus, entirely absent from the
Amazonian plain, though it has one representative in that of
Guayaquil, abounds on the woody slope of the Andes, especially
in the warm and temperate regions. 5
Papayacee.—Two species of Carica were seen, both slender
simple arbuscles of 5 to 6 feet, the one by the Chasudn, the
other by the San Antonio. The leaves of the former are boiled
and eaten by the inhabitants under the name of ‘‘ col del monte”
(wood cabbage). . . .
Flacourtiaceé, 1.—A small tree, probably a species of Bonara.
Samydee.—A Casearia, which seems to be C. Sylvestris, grows
in some abundance, but the fruits were open and empty. ‘This
is the highest point at which I have seen a species of Casearia,
a genus abundant in the plains, especially in woods of secondary
growth.
Fasstifloree, 2.—Both species of Passiflora; the one a woody
twiner (frequently found on the Red Bark tree), with entire leaves,
smallish green flowers, and globose berries the size of a cherry ;
>» Ve
PIN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 281
the other a beautiful arbuscle, seen only in the valley of San
Antonio, where it grows from the very plain up to 2600 feet.
The slender stems, of from 8 to 14 feet, are usually simple and
arched, and the large white flowers grow in small pendulous
corymbs from the axils of very large, elongate, glaucous leaves. .. .
Crucifere, 2.—Apparently species of Sisymbrium, the one
growing near streams, the other in open situations ; both in very
small quantity... .
Capparidacee.—The only species observed was a Cleome, a
genus which extends from the plain to a great height on the
wooded hills.
Sterculiacee.—A raft-wood tree, Ochroma, is pretty abundant.
Another tree of the same order (not seen in flower) appears to be
a Chorisia.
Luitineriacee, 1—A rampant Melochia. Jluntingia Calaburi,
a tree found in the plains on both sides of the Cordillera, grows
abundantly by the Rio San Antonio, up to 2500 feet.
Malvacee, 2.—Four or five common weeds, whereof Szda
glomerata, Cav., is the most plentiful, comprise all that was seen
of this order.
Tiliacee, 1.—A very handsome tree, with a slender straight
trunk, reaching 60 feet, very long branches, large, ligulate, serrated,
distichous leaves, and terminal panicles (sometimes 4 feet long)
of yellow flowers, scented like those of ZiZa Europea; it 1s
abundant and ornamental about the middle region of the Red
Bark. Besides this tree, another of the same order (apparently
a Heliocarpus), growing to about 30 feet, is also frequent. . . .
Polygalee, 2,—A Monnina and Polygala paniculata, L. . .
The Polygala of the Bark woods is the common and almost the
only species of the equatorial Andes, on whose western slopes it
descends to the plain, and does not seem to ascend higher than 7000
feet on either side, nor is it abundant at any elevation. When
I recollect the abundance of Polygala vulgaris on cold English
moors, I am struck with this paucity of Polygale in the Andes,
and still more when I compare it with their abundance and
variety on hot savannas of the Orinoco, and in hollows of
granite rocks by the Atabapo.
Sapindacee, 1.—A woody climbing Serjania, a fine plant.
A Paullinia with trigonous stems is frequent, and is the common
substitute for rope, where much strength is not required. I saw
no flowers of it, and only empty capsules. There is also a
Cardiospermum, which I have seen on both sides of the Cordillera
up to 7500 feet, and this is the greatest elevation at which I have
noted any Sapindacea, an order which abounds in the hot plains.
Malpighiacee, 1.—A twiner, with fruit too young to enable
me to speak positively of the genus. Plants of this order, which
constitute so large a proportion of the vegetation of the plains,
282 NOTES ‘OF 42 BOGAN Sa CHAP.
diminish rapidly in number and variety as we ascend the hills,
and beyond the warm region of the Andes the scandent species
entirely disappear; but a Bunchosia (probably B. Armentaca)—
a tree about the size of our pear trees—ascends high into the
temperate region. On the hills which slope down to the left
margin of the Pastasa this tree grows up to 8000 feet, and in
some places forms large continuous patches, unmixed with any
other tree. The edible, though rather insipid drupes, as large
as a peach, are exposed for sale in large quantities in Ambato
and the adjacent towns, under the name of “‘ciruelo de fraile ”
Or fniar/sap lim, eee
Ternstromiace@, 1.— . . . Two species of the anomalous genus
Saurauja form trees of about 30 feet, and are conspicuous from
their abundance, from their large lanceolate serrated leaves, and
axillary panicles of white flowers resembling those of /ragaria
vesca. One of the two, with ferrugino-tomentose leaves, seems
quite the same as I have gathered on Tunguragua up to 7000
feet (Pl. Exs. 5089). <A Freziera descends on the banks of the
Rio San Antonio40 2300 fecta = -
Clusiacee, 3.—One of them, a Clusia, abundant and orna-
mental from its numerous rose-coloured flowers, but the plants
nearly all males. . . . Two or three other Clusize were seen, not
in flower or fruit.
Marcgraviaceé, 1.—A Norantea, the same as that gathered in
the Bark woods of Puma-cocha. JMarcgravia umbellata is very
abundant, and climbs to the tops of the loftiest trees.
Anonacee, 2.—The one a Guatteria, rather scarce at about
3000 feet, the greatest elevation at which I have ever observed
the genus; the other a small Anona, also scarce; it bears an
edible fruit, called ‘‘cabeza de negro,” the size of an orange but
longer than broad. This order has its chief site in the hot plains.
Lricee, Subordo Vacciniacee, 6.—Four Vaccinia, one Thibaudia,
and one Macleania, all epiphytal shrubs. One of the Vaccinia,
with fleshy rose- or blood-coloured leaves, densely (almost teretely)
imbricated on the branches, and with slender red flowers in their
axils, looked very pretty on the old trees; but the Thibaudia was
still more ornamental, from the profusion of its large tubular
flowers—calyx and corolla at first yellow, turning red after the
bursting of the anthers, and persisting a long time; they unfor-
tunately turn black in drying, so that my specimens give no idea
of their beauty. In Thibaudia we have a remarkable example
of a genus which ascends from the very plain (where, however,
it iS very scarce) nearly to the extreme limit of ligmeseent
vegetation. Ericez, on the contrary, according to my observa-
tions, do not descend lower than 6000 feet, on the equator.
Amyridee.—Two small trees, of the genus Icica, were seen
in flower; and some of the tallest trees with pinnate leaves,
eee N PE CINCHONA FORESTS 283
I have no doubt, from their resinous juice, belong to the same
order.
Melacee, 1.—A species of Trichilia, called Muruvillo, whose
bark is held as a febrifuge, barely enters the Bark region at San
Antonio, but does not extend up to it at Limon. A tallish tree,
with pinnate leaves and very large serrated leaflets, which was
putting forth large terminal panicles when I left the woods,
probably belongs to this order.
Lygophyllee, 1.—A fine tree of 40 feet, with large opposite
pinnate leaves; it is closely allied to Guaiacum, though scarcely
referable to that genus.
Podostemacee.—The withered remains of at least three species
were observed on granite rocks in the river San Antonio, and
they are the first of the family I have seen in the Andes.
Oxalhdacee.—At San Antonio grow two species of Oxalis,
both of which I have previously gathered, the one on the eastern
side of the Andes near Banos, and the other at Pallatanga on
the western side.
Caryophyllacee.—A solitary species of each of the genera
Stellaria and Drymaria grows very sparingly. In ascending -
the eastern side of the Andes, I first came on a Stellaria at
between 2000 and 3000 feet. This order, frequent enough in
the upper regions of the Andes, seems to exist in the plains at
their base only in the genera Polycarpzea, Drymaria, and Mollugo,
ali three very scarce on the Atlantic side, but the last-named very
abundant on the Pacific side.
Fortulacee.—A Portulaca grows in sandy places inundated by
the Rio San Antonio.
Folygonee.—A Triplaris, apparently identical with that observed
at Puma-cocha, and possibly distinct from 7! Swurinamensis,
extends a little way into the territory of the Red Bark, and in
descending from thence becomes more abundant all the way
down to the plain, where it is called by the Guayaquilians Arbol
fewinies or Ague tree. Its presence, indeed, is a pretty sure
indication of a humid site.
Amarantacegé, 1.—A woody twiner. There are besides two or
three weedy plants of this order, probably species of ‘Telanthera.
Chenopodee.—Two common weeds; one of them being the
ubiquitous Chenopodium ambrostoides, which grows with almost
equal luxuriance in the elevated'central valley of the Andes and
in the plains of the Amazon and Guayaquil.
Piperacee, 5.—Species of this order are very numerous. I saw
perhaps as many as twenty, belonging chiefly to the genera
Artanthe and Peperomia. A very fine pepper, resembling Arfanthe
eximia, Miq., but a still handsomer plant, grows towards the lower
limit of the Bark region. The stem is 20 feet high, slender and
perfectly straight, and beset with short, distant, nearly horizontal
284 NOTES OF AY BOA wise CHAP.
ramuh, from which hang almost vertically the large, Pothos-like,
coriaceous, shining, deep blue-green leaves. A multicaul Artanthe,
15 to 25 feet high, springs up abundantly in the pastures, where
trees of it grow at such regular distances, and are so conspicuous
by their yellow-green foliage, that one would suppose them planted.
Their ashes afford an excellent lye for soap. On stones by the
Rio San Antonio grows a stout Peperomia, 1 to 2 feet high,
subramose, and putting forth axillary fascicles of slender white
spadices, which exhale a strong odour of aniseed. When in the
midst of a dense patch of it, the scent is almost stifling, though
pleasant enough at a short distance. Peppers are equally plentiful
in the plains and throughout the wooded slopes of the Andes.
Lauraceé, 3.—All small trees, not exceeding 4o feet; but a
great many more were observed, including some of the loftiest
trees of the forest.
Leguminose (Subordo Papilionacee), 3.—Several others were
observed, but either in poor state or inaccessible. Some of the
lofty trees with pinnate foliage, which were not seen in flower or
fruit, probably belogg to this order. ‘The commonest Papilionaceze
is a Mucuna, with herbaceous twining stems, without tendrils, and
large yellow flowers. It is the first Mucuna I have seen in the
hills, but it 1s equally abundant by the river Guayaquil. Five
species of Erythrina were seen, two at Limon (one of them being
the same as that gathered at Puma-cocha) and the remaining three
by the Rio San Antonio. There are also two Phaseoli, one Dioclea,
and another Phaseolea with slender spikes of small pale yellow
flowers and hard scarlet seeds, of which I have not yet deter-
mined the genus. An Indigofera, with small pink flowers, was
gathered at San Antonio, and the same is frequent in the plain of
Guayaquil.
Leguminose (Subordo Cesalpiniee), 1.—This fine tribe, so
abundant in the Amazonian plain, becomes scarce the moment
we enter the hills, and is very poorly represented in the Bark
woods. My specimens were gathered from the only tree I saw
of an obscure-looking Cassia. There is, however, one very fine
Ceesalpinieous tree, extending up the hills to 4000 feet, but much
more abundant at 2000 feet. The trunk grows to from 20 to
6o feet, and the branches each bear a coma of very long, elegant,
pinnate, pendulous leaves, like those of a Brownea. . . .
Leguminose (Subordo Mimosee), 4.—Three Ingz and one
Calliandra. Other two Ingze were seen, without flowers. JZimosa
asperata, perhaps the commonest of all plants on the muddy
shores of the Amazon and the river Guayaquil, struggles up the
Rio San Antonio to the lower limit of the growth of the Red
Bark, but never seems to flower at that elevation.
Rosaceé, 1.—A Rubus, with numerous small flowers, apparently
distinct from 2. Urticefolius, Poir., which I gathered in Maynas
met N PRE CINCHONA FORESTS 285
at the same elevation (3000 feet), and these are the lowest points
at which I have observed any Rosacez near the equator ; although
plants of this order, especially of the tribe Sanguisorbez, con-
stitute a considerable proportion of the vegetation of the open
highlands.
Flydrangeacee, 1.—A Cornidia. ‘The same, or a very similar
species, of this truly Andine genus grows by the Pastasa, on the
eastern side of the Cordillera, at about 4000 feet, and other three
species were gathered on Mount Campana, in Maynas, at 3000
feet. I have never seen any Cornidia either above or below the
warm region.
Cunoniacee.—A pinnate-leaved Weinmannia, sometimes reach-
ing 80 feet high, is very frequent, and extends down the banks of
the Chasuan to perhaps 2200 feet. A humbler species descends
nearly as low on the Andes of Maynas. On the wooded de-
clivity of the volcano Tunguragua, Weinmannie constitute a con-
siderable proportion of the vegetation, and extend upwards to at
least 11,000 feet.
Lythracee.—A Cuphea, a small, weak, much-branched under-
shrub, with purple flowers, grows gregariously in the pastures, gener-
ally accompanied by Szda glomerata and a Stachytarpheta. By the
Rio San Antonio grow other two Cuphez, one of which grows also
in the valley of Alausi. This genus, abundant in the plains on
both sides of the Cordillera, spreads up the hills to 7000 feet, or
through the region of the Red Bark, but scarcely up to that of
the Hill Barks. Adenaria purpurata grows by the Rio San
Antonio up to 2500 feet, and descends on its banks into the
plain, the same as it does by streams on the eastern side of the
Cordillera.
Onagraceé, 1.—Three species of Jussiza grow by the Rio San
Antonio. In the warm and hot regions this genus takes the place
of CEnothera, which is frequent in the hills, but rarely descends
below 6000 feet. In other parts of South America, as for instance
along the coast of Chili, Jussizeze are found inhabiting a cool
climate. A single plant of a large-flowered Fuchsia was gathered
at about 2700 feet. A similar species occurs very rarely on the
eastern side of the Cordillera, at a little higher elevation. These
are the only instances I know of Fuchsias descending so low,
their favourite climate being found in the temperate and cool
regions of the Andes, say from 6000 to 11,000 feet.
Melastomacee, 9.—The first plant which took my attention at
Limon, after the Cinchona, was a beautiful epiphytal Blakea, grow-
ing from 12 to 18 feet high, with broad coriaceous leaves and
Jarge rose-coloured flowers, from which features, and from its
often sitting high up the trees, it has almost the aspect of a
Clusia. At the base of each flower is a turgid involucre, of
four large, orbicular, widely and closely imbricated leaves, within
286 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP,
which is secreted a limpid fluid. When the corolla falls away,
the involucral leaves close firmly over the calyx, and do not open
out, nor does the contained fluid dry up, until the globose roseate
berry, the size of a pea, is quite ripe. Another singular character
is the syngenesious anthers, with a minute pore at the apex of
each cell, through which not a grain of pollen ever escapes, as I
satisfied myself by repeated observation ; fertilisation being effected
through the agency of minute beetles, which abound in the flowers,
and eat away the inner edge of the anther cells, probably part of
the pollen also me
The remaining Melastomaceze offer nothing noticeable, except
the scarcity of Miconia, the South American genus most abundant
in species and individuals, and occurring from the plain. to the
limits of true forest on the hills. I gathered but one species,
which I refer doubtfully to Miconia.
Myrtacee, 1.—Two or three Myrciz, which are rather scarce.
A fine Eugenia, called ‘‘ Arrayan” (but different from the Arrayan
of Quito), with very hard, durable wood, and exfoliating bark,
grows to a tree of 60 feet or more. Two Psidia are ireqment’;
the one (on the beaches by the Rio San Antonio) seems the
common Guayaba of the temperate region ; the other is a timber
tree called Guayaba del Monte, which, although of very slow
growth, ultimately reaches the dimensions of the Arrayan, and
yields equally valuable timber.
Barringtoniacee.—A Grias, with the characteristic coma of
large elongato-lanceolate leaves, seems to reach its upper limit
at about 2 so0Meet.. 14.
Loasace@, 1.—A weak branching herb with small white flowers,
probably an Ancyrostemon. ‘There grows also in the cane-fields
a virulently stinging Loasa, which is too common a weed on the
eastern side, at about 5000 feet. ‘This order, quite absent from
the Amazonian plain, accompanies woody vegetation from about
1200 feet up to 11,000 feet at the least, and many of the species .
are climbers.
OUmbellifere, 4.—Whereof three are Hydrocotyles, one of them
departing from the habit usual to the South American species,
in putting forth erect stems of 3 to 12 inches froma traglimge
rhizome. There is also a fourth Hydrocotyle (4. pusz//a, A. Rich.),
distinguished by its minute leaves and scarlet fruit, which I
gathered at the same elevation on the Andes of Maynas. I have
nowhere seen such abundance of Hydrocotyles in the forest as
at Limon, where they constitute a notable proportion of the
ground vegetation. In moist, open situations, on the higher
grounds, they are common enough. .. .
Araliacee.— Two species of the fine genus Panax are not
uncommon. |
Rubiacee, t9.—I1 think I gathered every plant of this order I
poe NY PRE CINCHONA FORESTS- 287
saw in tolerable state, but a good many more were observed,
on the whole about 30. Of plants peculiar to the warm and
temperate valleys of the Andes, never descending to the plain,
at least in this latitude, the following may be mentioned: Cvzn-
chona succirubra and magnifolia, two Hameliz (one with larger
flowers than I have seen in any other species), a Gonzalea, and
Rubia Relboun. Of genera abundant in the plains and rarely
climbing the hills are Randia, Uncaria, Nonatelia, Faramea, and
Cephaélis. Uncaria Guianensis, a twiner with formidable aculei-
form stipules, has a very remarkable distribution. I have thrice
met with it on the Atlantic side of the Andes, viz. first, at Para
near the mouth of the Amazon; secondly, towards the head of
the Orinoco; and thirdly, on the hill of Lamas, in the Andes of
Maynas. In each of these three localities, so widely separated,
it occupies a very limited area. I again met with it about the
lower frontier of the Bark region, and on the rivers entering the
Gulf of Guayaquil it is so abundant as to form a serious obstruction
to navigation, especially in the upper part of their course, where
the current is rapid and canoes ascending the stream must neces-
sarily keep close inshore. . . . Of plants allied to Cinchona, the most
remarkable is a fine epiphyte, resembling Buena and Hillia in the
large white salver-shaped odoriferous flowers. . . . There is also
a handsome tree, growing from 4000 feet upwards, perhaps allied
to Ludenbergia, but with a curious bilamellate crest on the apex
of each segment of the corolla. I have previously gathered a
congener at Tarapoto, and another on ‘Tunguragua. ‘Two very fine
and closely-allied species of the tribe Gardeniz I can refer to no
described genus. One of them has leaves of immense size, near
a yard long, and they are aggregated at the apex of a usually
simple stem, so as to give it the appearance of a palm. The
moment I saw it, I recollected having observed the same or a
very similar tree near Santarem, where I could never find flowers,
nor did I meet with it elsewhere on the Amazon.
Loranthacee, 1.—A Loranthus, with numerous small, yellow,
sweet-scented flowers, growing abundantly, especially on Inga
trees. ‘There are many other species, but no large-flowered ones.
Aristolochiacee, 1.—Two Aristolochiz were seen, but in a
barren state. A third species, scarcely referable to Aristolochia,
was gathered with young flowers. None of the three were seen
climbing on the Red Bark tree.
Lobeliacee, 3.—One Centropogon and two Siphocampyli.
One or two other species of the latter genus were seen. The
only Lobeliacea I have seen in the plain is Cextropogon Surina-
mensts, Which I gathered at the foot of the granitic mountain
Iméi, at the source of the river Pacimoni.
Valertanaceé, 1.—A slender twining einem. This genus,
absent from the plains, begins to be met with in the hills at about
288 NOTES OF A BOTANISa CHAP.
3000 feet, and extends thence to the very snow-line, going through
more phases in external appearance than I know in any other
genus.
Composite, 3.—So long as I herborised only in the plains, I
could never understand how Humboldt had assigned so large a
proportion of equinoctial vegetation to Composite, for, from the
mouth of the Amazon to the cataracts of the Orinoco and the foot
of the Andes, with the exception of a few scandent Vernoniz and
Mikaniz, and of a few herbs on inundated beaches of the rivers,
the species of Compositz that exist are weeds, common to many
parts of tropical America, nor did I meet with more than one
arborescent Composita (Vernonia polycephala, DC.) in the whole
of that immense area. But in ascending the Andes, from 1200
feet upwards, Compositee increase in number and variety at every
step, and include many arborescent species. About midway of
the wooded region, and especially in places where the trees form
scattered groves rather than continuous woods, Composite are
more abundant than any other family, both as trees and woody
twiners, and in the latter form extend nearly to the limit of
arborescent vegetation, especially as species of the fine genus
Mutisia; while on the frigid paramos no frutescent plants ascend
higher than the Chuquiraguas and Loricarias, and as alpine herbs,
the Achyrophori, Werneriz, etc., reach the very snow-line. In
the Red Bark woods Composite are plentiful, and I should esti-
mate the number of species at near 50. ‘The trees of this order
are chiefly Vernoniz, and they abound most in deserted clearings.
During my stay, a plot was again brought under cultivation which
had remained desert for twelve years, during which period it had
become so densely and equably clad with a Vernonia, whose
slender white stems had reached a height of 4o feet, that at a
distance it looked like a plantation. Many of the woody twiners
are Composite, chiefly Senecionidze, and as herbaceous or suffruti-
cose twiners there are several Mikaniz. ‘The young shoots of a
species of Mikania bear very large cordate leaves, usually white
over the veins and purple or violet on the whole under-surface.
. . . Among shrubby Composite I noted some Eupatoria and
two Baccharides, but no Barnadesia; nor among herbs any
Gnaphalium, although on the eastern side of the Cordillera the
two latter genera descend nearly to 3000 feet. TZessaria legitima,
DC., is abundant by the Rio San Antonio. J have come on
this tree in the roots of the Cordillera on both sides, by all the
streams which have open gravelly or sandy beaches laid under
water by occasional or periodical floods.
Apocynee, 2.—One Peschiera and one Echites. This order
rarely ascends up out of the hot region in the Andes, and in the
temperate region I have seen only a single species.
fee IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 289
Asclepiadee, 4.—All milky twiners. This order, like the pre-
ceding, has its principal seat in the hot region, but is by no means
confined to it, for two or three slender Cynoctona are frequent
in the cooler parts of the Andes, trailing over the hedges of Cactus
and Agave.
Solanacee, 5.—In this order, also, my collection contains a
very small proportion of the species existing in the Red Bark
woods. Shrubby Solana are almost endless, and two species rise
to trees. Two or three species of Cestrum also occur as slender
trees.
Cordiacee, 1.—A Cordia, a stout sarmentose species, which
threads about among the trees up to a considerable height, though
it never actually twines.
Convolvulacee.—This order seems confined to a couple of
- Ipomeeee, both occurring very rarely.
Myrsinee, 2 (or perhaps 3).—The most remarkable of all the
plants I gathered is a Myrsinea, though, as it grows only at from
5000 to 7000 feet, it barely touches the frontier of the Red Bark
region. It is an arbuscle of 8 to ro feet, bearing a coma of large,
long, deep green coriaceous leaves, so that without flower it has
quite the aspect of a Grias; but above the leaves there is a mass,
the size of the human head, of densely packed panicles and
minute flowers, all of the same deep red colour. I have not
previously seen any Myrsinea at all resembling it in habit; but
I have examined it sufficiently to state with confidence that it
belongs to this order, although probably to an undescribed genus.
Labiate, 1.—Besides the solitary species gathered, there exist
two species of Hyptis, one of them apparently AZ. Swaveolens ;
but this order is always scantily represented in the forest. In
cane-fields at San Antonio I saw a Stachys with small white
flowers.
Verbenacee, 2.—One of them a prickly suffruticose Lantana,
threading among the bushes up to 18 feet in height; the other a
woody twiner, with pretty waxy flowers, flesh-coloured externally,
but the limb purple within; it is probably a Citharexylon, allied
to C. scandens, Benth. (gathered on the Uaupés), though the
habit is totally different from the arborescent Citharexyla which
grow in the cooler parts of the Andes. A Duranta was noted at
San Antonio. A Stachytarpheta, which I take to be S. Jamaicens?s,
and is known in Peru and Ecuador as ‘‘ Verbena,” seems to follow
the steps of man in the Cordillera from near the plain up to
10,000 feet. At Limon it exists sparingly as a weed. Another
species of the same genus, with very siender spikes and small
lilac flowers, abounds in open places.
Gesneracee, 17.—The abundance of this family is one of the
distinctive features of the Red Bark woods. One group, comprising
several species, has a woody rhizome, creeping up the trees, and
VOL. IT U
290 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
few long sarmentose leafy branches. The leaves of each pair
are very unequal, and the smaller one sometimes obsolete ; the
larger one is long, lance-shaped, and, while the rest of the leaf
is green, the apex and sometimes part: of the maromlyare
stained of a deep red, so as to resemble a lance dipped in blood,
whence the native name “punta de lanza.” The axillary flowers
are comparatively inconspicuous, and they are partially concealed
by large red or blood-stained bracts ; they seem to vary consider-
ably in structure in the different species, but I have scarcely
examined them, and cannot, therefore, refer these plants with
certainty to their proper genus. Another group, whereof two
species were seen and gathered, has the long tubular corolla sub-
tended by pinnati-partiti sepals, which are so densely beset with
stout jointed hairs as to resemble the calyx of a moss rose, a
pecuharity which I do not find noted in any described species of
this order. One of the two is a small under-shrub, -with the
calyx and the corolla yellow; the other a slender herbaceous
twiner with a scarlet calyx and -a: dull violet corolla. An
Achimenes, with pretty scarlet flowers, abounds along the
dechivities.
Lignoniaceé, 2.—The one a Bignonia, with round stems; the
other an Amphilophium, with 6-angled stems; both twiners. An-
other Bignonia was seen, not in flower. I saw no tree of this
order, though ‘Tecomz exist both in the plain and in the cool
hill forests. JI have never seen any climbing Bignoniacez at a
greater elevation than about 3500 feet, but they form a large
proportion of the scandent vegetation of the hot plains.
Acanthacee, 9.—This order is tolerably abundant, and two
under-shrubs growing about the lower boundary of the Bark
region bear spikes of large handsome scarlet flowers, in appear-
ance like those of a Justicia, but different in character. A Men-
dozia, with woody twining stems and umbels of small white
verbena-like flowers, grows everywhere.
Scrophulariacee, 4.—All humble herbs, two of them species of
Herpestes, and all rather scarce.
Of Ferns and their allies I gathered the following :—
Species.
Equisetum : I
Lycopodium
Selaginella
Polybotrya
Rhipidopteris
Elaphoglossum
Lomaria .
Blechnum
Xiphopteris
Gymnopteris
See NOS HB ON
fe IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 201
Species.
Vents . : ; 3
Adiantum
Hypolepis ; I
Pteris (including Litobrochia)
Meniscium é
Asplenium (including Callipteris, Diplazium, and
Oxygonium) . ; 2
Hemidyctium
Didymochlzna
Polypodium
Phegopteris
Goniopteris
Dictyopteris
Goniophlebium .
Campyloneuron .
Niphobolus
Pleopeltis
Anapeltis
Dipteris .
Aspidium
Nephrodium
Lastroea . E : : : I
Nephrolepis
Davallia .
Cyathea .
Hemitelia
Alsophila
Gleichenia
Trichomanes
Hymenophyllum
Lygodium
on
=
AOR eR eR NW HOM HWW HNN HSH NOD Ae
|
Total . ee ele
From these should be deducted to or 12 species gathered
beyond the limits of the Red Bark, which will leave (say) 120
species. Within those limits the following Ferns were seen, but
not gathered, either because they are common throughout tropical
America or from the specimens being imperfect: Azolla Magel-
lanica; Equisetum sp.; Preris aguilina, var. caudata; Gymno-
gramme calomelanos, and another species of that genus (PI. Exs.
4153) which grows everywhere in the roots of the Cordillera on
gravelly beaches ; Cyclopeltis semicordata, a common fern in the
hot and warm regions, wherever there are rocks; a loosely pilose
Pteris, in very ragged condition, gathered previously at Tarapoto
(Pl. Exs. 4667); a Dicksonia, of which I saw only young plants
and old frondless trunks; several species of Elaphoglossum, of
292 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
which the fertile fronds were shrivelled up, having been in per-
fection in the wet season, and two or three Hymenophylla in the
same state; so that if we make allowance for the few species
which must have eluded my search, we may safely assume that
I left at least 20 ferns ungathered, and the whole number may
be taken at 140, that is, of ferns existing in a space not more
than four miles long by three-quarters of a mile broad, or of ¢A7ee
sguare miles. Perhaps few parts of the world possess so many
species of ferns growing naturally in so small an area.
The five species of tree-ferns gathered in fruit all grow in
tolerable abundance, and one of them, an Alsophila, with a trunk
40 feet high, large, stout, pale green fronds, and exactly opposite
pinnee, is perhaps the handsomest tree-fern I ever saw. The
Cyathea has almost constantly, below its own fronds, a supple-
mentary crown of numerous deep green, widely arched, sterile
fronds of a Lomaria, among which spring vertically the slender,
pectinate, fertile fronds; while the trunk is enveloped? ina
continuous sheath of the soft, pale, but clear green foliage of
Bartramia viridissima; C. Mull.; the whole forming one of those
lovely pictures which only those who seek out Nature in her
remotest recesses are privileged to see.
MuscI
This Bartramia was in good fruit, but the great part of the
mosses had fruited during the rainy season, and the number of
species was by no means so great as one would have supposed,
to see the dense festoons of moss depending from old trees.
They are in main part composed of two or three species, which
modern botanists would refer to Trachypus, of as many Meteoria,
and of a Frullania. Ahacopilum tomentosum is frequent, as it 1s
all through the roots of the Cordillera, on both sides=earnd
another Rhacopilum (2. polythrincium, MSS.) grows in some
abundance. Orthotricha, common enough in the region of the
Hill Barks, scarcely descend below 6000 feet, and at Limon their
place is supplied by Macromitrium and Schlotheimia, both very
sparingly represented. Hookeriz, so abundant and ornamental
on the eastern slope of the Cordillera, in the same latitude and
altitude, barely exist at Limon.
HEPATIC
Hepaticee are rather more varied than mosses, and the genus
Plagiochila, especially, is well represented. Notwithstanding the
vast variety of Plagiochile I have gathered on the Amazon and
on the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Quito, I still found
new forms at Limon. The favourite site of this genus is in the
warm and temperate region of the Andes. Lower down the
meee Lib CINCHONA FORESTS 293
number of species diminishes rapidly, and higher up, towards the
limit of the forest, the huge masses of robust Sendtnerze, Lepi-
doziz, and in some places of Frullaniz, leave little room for
the delicate Plagiochile. Lejeuniz, on the contrary, are hot
country plants.
LICHENS
Of Lichens, the foliaceous species are remarkably scarce.
Epiphyllous lichens, whose abundance and variety is so notable a
feature of the vegetation of the Amazon, seem to attain their
upper limit in the Red Bark woods. ‘The trunks of the trees are
generally too well covered with mosses to leave much room for
the development of crustaceous lichens. Still, a good many
species exist, chiefly Graphidez, and I did not notice any lichen
on the Red Bark which does not grow indifferently on other sorts
CIUMeeS, i .
Reserving the important subject of climate
tee last discussed, I resume my ‘narrative of
onerations.
In the month of July a report reached us that
an Englishman, bringing with him a number of
boxes, had arrived at Ventanas. On the strength
of this I immediately sent Dr. Taylor thither with
horses, and he had the great satisfaction of finding
the Englishman to be Mr. Cross. Ventanas, how-
ever, was so full of soldiery, and was so likely to
be soon the theatre of a conflict (for the opposing
army lay encamped only a few leagues lower down
iiertiver), that Dr. Taylor very wisely had the
materials for the Wardian cases removed about
haGee ours journey up the river, to a-farm called
Aguacatal, where they were not likely to be
molested.
Mr. Cross had had all sorts of obstacles thrown in
his way by the forces that held the river, and with
the greatest difficulty had found men to row his
canoes, so that the distance from Guayaquil to
294 «NOTES OF A BOTANIST soe.
Ventanas (which appears so short on the map) had
taken him thirteen days te travel.- “Heino
reached Limon on the 27th of July, looking pale
and thin from his recent illness and irom the
sleepless nights passed on the river, but anxious to
set to work immediately. We had no young
plants for him, nor any expectation of obtaining
them, but I was satisfied that cuttings would
succeed, although it would necessarily be a tedious
process to root them well. The owner or the
chacra of Oso-cahuitu showed me some sprigs, cut
from an old stool of Red Bark, which he had stuck
into the ground by a watercourse four months pre-
viously, and they had all rooted well. Mr. Cross
also agreed with me that the success of the process
was certain, and that the question was merely one
of time, which only experience could solve. After
reposing the following day (Sunday), we had a
piece of ground fenced in, and Mr Crossmmadera
pit, and prepared the soil to receive the cutimos:
of which he put in above a thousand on the rst of
August and following days. He afterwards put in
a great many more, subjecting them to various
modes of treatment; and he went round to all the
old stools, and put in as many layers from them as
possible ; but only those who have attempted to do
anything in the forest, possessing scarcely any of
the necessary appliances, and obliged to supply
them as far as possible from the forest itself, can
have any idea of the difficulties to be surmounted.
Glass was the only thing for which we could find
no substitute, and to get up to Limon the glasses
of the Wardian cases was not to be thought of,
over roads so narrow and rough, where even the
poe DE: CINCHONA FORESTS — 295
surest-footed beast goes on continually stumbling.
So we made our frames of palm-fronds, our buckets
of bamboos, and invented similar contrivances for
other needful articles. The closed communication
with Guayaquil was felt to be a sore obstacle, as
we might have sent thither for canvas and other
things required for the plants, and also for a little
wine and porter for the invalids.
The mornings were always cool and sometimes
aol), but at 7 o'clock or so the sun would often
come out blazing hot. In the afternoons, when the
fog seemed to have set in for the day, it would
sometimes clear away for a brief space, and admit
the scorching rays of the sun. On these occasions,
and on the days of sustained heat, the only means
of keeping the plants from withering was to give
them abundance of water; and then there was the
risk, on the other hand, of their damping off.
Water was supplied to the trapiche, for the service
of the still and for culinary purposes, by a small
acéquia (canal) carried along the hill-side from the
head of a rivulet about a mile off. We had by this
means generally sufficient water for our plantation,
but as the acequia was ill made and protected by
no fence, the cattle, roaming. about, generally trod
and dammed it up at least once every day, when
the Indians had to seek out and repair the damaged
spots. But when the supply of water failed just at
the moment of one of those outbursts of sun, there
was no alternative but for all hands to run with
buckets down to the deep glen, where there was a
considerable stream, although the steep ascent from
it was very toilsome. Ina few weeks the cuttings
began to root, and then they were attacked by
296 NOVES OF A" BOTANITSa CHAP.
caterpillars, which also had to be combated. In
short, it is impossible to detail here all the ob-
stacles encountered, and which only Mr. Cross’s
unremitting watchfulness enabled him to surmount.
As his labours have been crowned by success, he
may perhaps give a separate account of them,
which will necessarily be fuller and more accurate
than any I could furnish.
The passage of troops still went on for some
days after Mr. Cross’s arrival at Limon. A good
deal of rain had fallen in the upper woody region
and the roads were horrible. The poor beasts of
burden, ill-treated and with their heavy loads ill-
adjusted, had their backs worn into sores, and
many of them sank under their burdens. Wher-
ever a beast gave in, there it was. turned admit,
In the warm forest, maggots soon filled their sores
and ate into their very entrails ; so, after wandering
about for a time, most pitiable objects, they at
length nearly all died. Between Guaranda and
Ventanas not fewer than 300 dead horses and
mules strewed the track and the adjacent forest,
and above 20 carcasses were laid within nose-shot
of our hut. I set the Indians to rollithem -inee
ditches and hollows, and cover them with branches
and earth, but the horrid smell turned their
stomachs and they never half performed the task.
During the day, whilst we were going about, we
did not feel so much inconvenience, but when the
night breeze filled our hut with the vile odour we
found it impossible to sleep. Now I smoked
awhile, and then I lay down, covering my face
with a handkerchief wetted with camphorated
spirit, but all in vain. When I considered the fate
wee ate CINCHONA FORESTS 297
of those poor animals, and still more that of their
unfortunate owners, from whom they had been
taken by force, and who, in losing perhaps their
only mule, had no means left of conveying to
market the produce of their industry, and thereby
supporting their families, it will not be wondered
at that I cursed in my heart all revolutions. Grave
indeed must be the motive of complaint which a
people can have against its rulers to justify it in
taking up arms to obtain redress.’
Towards the end of July the weather improved,
and in a few sunny days the fruit of the Bark trees
made visible advances towards maturity. On the
13th of August I noticed that the finest capsules
were beginning to burst at the base, and on the
following day I had all taken off that seemed ripe,
gathering them in this way: an Indian climbed the
tree, and breaking the panicles gently off, let them
fall on sheets spread on the ground to receive them,
so that the few loose seeds shaken out by the fall
' IT may here relate an incident bearing on the same subject. Whilst Dr.
Taylor was bringing up Mr. Cross from Ventanas, a body of some 800 men,
whose commander I had known at Ambato, arrived from Guaranda. As
usual, they bivouacked at Limon, and when I turned out on the following
morning, I saw my four Indians prisoners in the hands of the soldiery, and
one of them, with his hands tied behind him and a rope round his body,
about to be dragged off towards Ventanas. Among the beasts of burden
which accompanied the troops, this poor fellow had recognised his own mule
—his ozly mule—as dear to 427 as Sancho’s ass was to Sancho, and, with the
aid of his companions, had contrived to abstract it during the night and hide
it away in the forest. In the morning the mule was missed, and my Indians
were immediately denounced as the delinquents, for they had been seen
handling the mule the previous evening. I confess my indignation was at
that moment at the boiling-point, and I wished for a hundred ‘“ Rifle
Volunteers” to put the whole disorderly rabble to rout. However, I had
given up half my dormitory to the colonel, and had treated him with as much
hospitality as lay in my power, so that I had some right to expect he would
not deny any request of mine ; and accordingly, after a short parley with him,
he ordered the Indians to be released. Thus I kept my Indians, and the
Indian kept his mule, which was all we wanted.
298 NOLES OF A BOTAN Tom CHAP.
were not lost. The capsules were afterwards
spread out to dry on the same sheets, and the
drying occupied from two to ten days. The first
seeds were gathered at Limon on the rath, and the
last on the 29th of August. Early in September
they were all dry.
Mr. Cross sowed, on the 16th of August, eight
of the seeds I had gathered; one of them began to
germinate on the fourth day, and at the ema. ane
fortnight four seeds had pushed their radicles. On
the 6th of September one had the seed-leaves com-
pletely developed, and by the oth of the same month,
or on the twenty-fifth day after sowing, the last of
the eight seeds pushed its radicle. One womirie
seedlings was afterwards lost by an accident, but
the remaining seven formed healthy little plants,
and when embarked at Guayaquil, along with the
rooted cuttings and layers, bid as fair as any of the
latter to reach India alive. He had previously
sown, at Guayaquil, eight Cinchona seeds gathered
by me in 1859, and which had remained nine
months’ in my herbarium; even of theseesiam
germinated, and the remaining four might possibly
have grown also, had they not been carried off by’
mice. It is therefore clearly proved that Gvell-
ripened and properly dried seeds do not lose their
vitality for a much longer period than their exces-
sive delicacy would lead one to suspect.
Having learnt that there were a few seed-bear-
ing trees at Tabacal, a farm in the San Antonio
valley, near the deserted village of San Antonio, I
determined to go there while Mr. Cross and Dr.
Taylor were attending to the work at Limon. The
distance is not perhaps more than 15 miles in a
Me ie, CYUNCHONA FORESTS 200
straight line, but there is no road unless by way of
Guaranda, which would take four days. I therefore
followed a route already taken by Dr. Taylor,
namely, along the path to Guaranda as far as the
first ridge, and thence down to some cane-farms on
the Rio de Tablas. From this point Dr. Taylor
with an Indian had opened a track. I remained at
Mabacal irom the 14th to the 28th of September,
collecting seeds as the capsules ripened and drying
them carefully before packing.
I had now gathered about 2500 well-grown
capsules (without enumerating many smaller ones),
namely, 2000 from ten trees at Limon, and 500
fmemmive trees at San Antonio. Good capsules
contain 40 seeds each—in some I have counted 42
—so that I calculated I had (in round numbers) at
least 100,000 well-ripened and well-dried seeds.
Some small turgid (almost globose) capsules con-
tained only from two to four seeds, as large and
ripe as any in the largest capsules, while other
capsules of the ordinary length, but slender, proved
to contain only abortive seeds and were accordingly
feyececad in the drying.— Had the month of July
been as sunny as it 1s said usually to be, many more
capsules would doubtless have ripened; as it was,
only about one flower in ten produced ripe seeds.
I had scarcely finished drying my seeds at
Tabacal, when I received the welcome intelligence
that the army of General Flores had obtained pos-
session of Guayaquil, and that the communication
between the coast and the interior was reopened.
I therefore resolved to proceed to Guayaquil and
dispatch from thence a portion of my seeds by the
first opportunity.
300 NOTES OF A BOA MIS CHAP.
I started from Tabacal on September 28. The
road thence to Guayaquil follows the right bank of
the river, as far as to where the latter is confined
to a deep chasm, and then crosses to the left bank.
The descent is really very gradual, but seems more
steep than it is, because the river tosses and
foams among the huge stones which impede its
course. As we descended, it was interesting to
mark the gradual transition to the vegetation of the
hot region. Leguminous trees, so scarce in the
hills, began to be frequent. A bombaceous tree
here and there adorned the forest with its numerous
purple flowers. Czxchona magntfolia was budding
for flower ; it accompanied me to within 1000 feet
of the plain. Enormous figs, with a long cone of
exserted roots, straddled over the decayed remains,
or often only over the site, of the tree which had
served to support them in their infancy, and which
they had strangled to death after establishing for
themselves a separate existence.
At about 1500 feet elevation, | meteiwitinws
Myristica, which grows about Tarapoto at the same
altitude. <A little lower down I saw the first Neea,
and near it a Vismia, not one of those weedy species
diffused throughout tropical America, but a hand-
some tree, resembling V. uvultfera (from the
Casiquiari). These three genera seem rarely to
ascend above the hot region.
Five leagues below Tabacal the road again
passes, by a broad pebbly ford, to the right bank
at Pozuelos, where we drew up for the night,
thoroughly wetted by a soaking shower which had
accompanied us for the last hour and a half.
Pozuelos is a miserable little bamboo village, but
Zee bah CINCHONA PORESTS 301
notable for its extensive orangeries, which produce
the finest fruit in Ecuador. Here the valley opens
out wide, and by an almost imperceptible descent
mingles gradually with the plain. The river
became muddy, still, and tolerably deep. The
vegetation is now unmistakably tropical, and there
is as noble forest around Pozuelos as I have any-
where seen. Palms are far less varied than on the
Amazon, but the Attalea above mentioned grows
immensely tall and stout. An Astrocaryum, whose
clustered trunks are perfect chevaux de frtse, from
the long flat prickles with which they are beset, is
very frequent. Muimosz are abundant, and so are
papilionaceous twiners, among which I noted an
Ecastaphyllum. The beautiful arborescent Passi-
flora (Astrophea) grows far larger than at San
Antonio, and I could not help now and then
stopping my horse under its stems, which here and
there bent gracefully over dour path, to admire the
large pendulous glaucous leaves and the clusters
of white flowers; but I sought in vain for ripe
berries. Im matshy places there are beds of rank
ferns, and in pools an Eichhornia and a Pontederia.
The common weeds of hot countries begin to
appear, such as Asclepras curassavica and Traridium
Indicum, the latter of which I had not seen since
leaving the Amazon.
[After much delay at Bodegas, waiting for
the small steamer, Guayaquil was reached on
October 6, and a portion of the ripe seed sent, as
instructed, to Jamaica. The young plants were
not ready for transmission till the end of November,
when Spruce returned up the river to Aguacatal,
302 NOTES OF A DBereawism CHAP.
the nearest» port to Limon, where a negrotcan,
penter put together the Wardian cases, and a raft
was purchased to take them down to Guayaquil.
The construction of this raft was interesting, and
the description of it and of the dangerous voyage
down the river will complete the essential portions
of this Report.
I will first give, however, a short letter written
while Spruce was delayed in the city. |
Lo Mr. John Leasdale
GUAYAQUIL, WVov. 6, 1860.
The town of Guayaquil extends about alia
league along the margin of the river, which is here
two miles broad. The principal street, called the
Malecén (or Mole), runs by the river throughout that
distance; but the town is narrow, and at the back
stretches a wide, and what is now an arid, plain; but
in the rainy season (which will shortly set in) all this
plain is water and mud. Beyond the plain a salt
creek impedes further progress in that direction.
The houses are built of a framework of timber, neatly
overlaid with bamboo-cane, and plastered within
and without. The rooms are mostly papered and
painted, and are often elegantly and even richly
furnished—although sparsely, as befits a hot climate.
The upper rooms project so far over the lower
that they form a broad covered footway, which has
a boarded floor, and affords a welcome shade in the
heat of the day. A town built of such combustible
materials is constantly exposed to conflagrations,
and although there are several fire-engines, two of
which are manned entirely by foreigners, the fires
= IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 303
cause fearful ravages. A few days ago we had
within twenty-four hours two fires and a smart
eammq@u@ake. —[he latter did slight damage here,
but half destroyed the town of Tumbez, which lies’
farther south and is the first port in the Republic
omer. In the month of October we had several
- earthquakes, in one day no fewer than four. So
you see that what with commotions below and
above ground—earthquakes, revolutions, fires, etc.,
—people live here in continual alarm. Guayaquil
is, in fact, a town purely commercial, and the people
work as if at the bottom of a mine, seeking gold,
and in the hope of one day emerging to the light
in some place where they may live in peace and
comfort.
Since I came to Guayaquil, I have been a day’s
journey up one of the numerous rivers that empty
themselves into the Gulf, to visit a large village
called Daule, where I had been recommended to
pass the winter. The river Daule is exceedingly
pleasant—at least now in the dry season—and
amm@est @hinese~in its character. At every turn,
groups of Coco palms, Orange trees, Plantains, etc.,
come in sight, with their accompanying cottage of
bamboo-cane—or perhaps a more substantial edifice
with a tiled roof, on some sugar plantation. The
object of my journey was to inspect a house which
is offered me by a gentleman, Dr. Aguirre, who has
travelled much in Europe and speaks English,
French, and Italian. The house is new—neat
and commodious—but I can see that in winter the
whole surrounding country will be inundated, which
means abundance of mud and stagnant pools at
the beginning of the dry season. My present
304 NOTES OF A BOrRANTS& CHAP.
notion is that I had better pass the winter at Piura,
which is just within the rainless region on the coast
ol Renu,
REPORT (continued)
The raft was composed of twelve trunks of raft-
wood, 63 to 66 feet long, and about a foot in
diameter, ranged longitudinally, so as to occupy a
width of.15 feet, and kept in their places by five
shorter pieces tied transversely and widely apart,
extending nearly to the root end of the trunks, but
leaving a considerable space free towards their
point, for the convenience of working the raft.
The five cross pieces were covered with bamboo
planking, so as to form a floor 36 feet long by
104 feet broad, which was fenced round with rails
to a height of 3 feet, and the whole roofed over
and thatched with leaves of MWaranta Vijao. For
carrying cacao, the fence has to be lined with
bamboo boards, so as to form, with the flooring, a
sort of large bin. The rope used in binding to-
gether the constituent parts of the raft was the
twining stem of a Bignonia, nearly terete, but
marked by four raised lines, overlying four deep
grooves in the substance of the stem, and alter-
nating with four shallower grooves. When the
stem is twisted, to enable it to be tied, it splits
lengthwise along those grooves into eight strips,
which, however, still pull together, and offer very
great resistance to transverse fracture.’
1 T have long known that the strongest of ail lanas are Bignonias, and I
have many times trusted my life and goods to their strength. In the malos
pasos of the Huallaga, canoes are dragged up the most dangerous places by
means of from one to four stems of Bignonia, according to the size of the
pe tN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 305
The cases were all in readiness, and the raft
brought down the river and moored in front of the
farmhouse, but Mr. Cross did not arrive with the
Peameseintil the 13th of December. Some. diffh-
culty had been experienced in procuring the re-
quisite number of beasts of burden, and the making
of cylindrical baskets to contain the plants had
proved a tedious task; besides that, the tying up
each plant in wet moss, and the packing them in
the baskets, were delicate operations which Mr.
Cross could trust to no hands but his own. There
had been not a few falls on the way, and some of
the baskets had got partially crushed by the wil-
fulness of the bulls in running through the bush ;
bitte oreater part of the plants turned out
wonderfully fresh. We had the cases taken down
to the raft, and Don Matias lent us a couple of men
to carry thither the earth, sand, and dead leaves
necessary for making the soil to put in the cases.
Mr. Cross put as many plants into the cases as he
could possibly find room for, and only rejected a
few that were so much injured by their journey
from Limon that they were not likely to survive
the voyage to India, the whole number put in
being 637. As we might expect some rough treat-
ment on the descent to Guayaquil, we did not
venture to put on the glasses, but in their stead
canoe and the weight of its cargo. I have never known the lianas to break ;
and as I have sat in my canoe, anxiously watching its slow upward progress,
my only care was that the lianas were securely fastened to the prow, or lest
the sudden bursting of a whirlpool beneath the canoe should tear them from
the hands of the Indians, as they with difficulty held their way along the rocky
shore.
In the Guayaquil district, as on the Amazon, the aerial roots of various.
Aroideze and Carludovicze are the common substitutes for string, but Bignonia
stems are always preferred wherever strength is essential.
VOL. Il x
306 NOTES OF AP BOTANTS® CHAP.
stretched moistened strips of calico over the cases,
which seemed to answer admirably. As Mr. Cross
wished the plants to be firmly established in their
new residence before removing them from Agua-
catal, I determined to delay our departure until the
latest possible moment, that is to say, so as to
reach Guayaquil and fasten up the cases before the
arrival of the steamer‘on the 26th:
After my arrival at Aguacatal the weather was
occasionally showery, but the rains were evidently
heavier towards the source of the river, which
would suddenly rise several feet, and then rapidly
lower again; so that we had to watch our raft night
and day, lest on the one hand it should be carried
away by the floods or the onslaughts of driftwood,
or on the other hand should be left high and dry
by the sudden receding of the waters. At 11 P.M.
of December 22, heavy rain came on at Aguacatal,
and did not cease until 9 a.m. of the following day,
when the river had risen much, and continued
rising through the day. The next mightgal
heavier rain fell, clearing off at about 8 a.m. of the
24th, which was the day fixed for starting on our
voyage. Our raftsmen were three in number as far
as to Bodegas, but thence to Guayaquil, where the
river is wider, and is therefore not subject to sudden
rises| and falls, we needed only two,-” Ac soem
as the rain ceased, we got the glasses of the cases
put on board, and when our raftsmen had taken
their last trago with their friends, and said their
last adios (always a lengthy process), we left
Aguacatal; Don Matias, at parting, foretelling us
a speedy but perilous voyage.
mee ON A RAFT TO GUAYAQUIL 307
The oars used in navigating these rafts are
merely bamboos, about 20 feet long, half their
thickness being cut away for about a yard at the
outer end, so as to form a sort of scoop. ‘Two oars
were fixed in the prow, and a third oar in the stern,
the latter being worked by the old black who had
sold me the raft. The river had risen almost to its
winter level, and we swept along rapidly. At
2 P.M. we were already eight leagues away from
Aguacatal, near a site called Catarama, below which
the river is narrowed in some places to 30 yards,
and the navigable channel is further straitened by
the trees (chiefly species of Inga) which hang far
over the water. Add to this that the river ran like
elec, and that the turms were frequent and
abrupt, and it will be seen how difficult it was to
maintain our clumsy craft always in the mid-stream.
Although the men tugged hard at their oars, they
could not save us from being frequently brushed
Pi@eme trees; and at length, at a sharp turn, the
raft went dead on, and through a mass of branches
and twiners that hung over to the middle of the
fece Phe effect was tremendous: the heavy
cases were hoisted up and dashed against each
other, the roof of our cabin smashed in, and the
old pilot was for some moments so completely
involved in the branches and the wreck of the roof,
tide expected nothing but that he had been
Gatimteadvaway; he held on, however,-and at last
emerged, panting and perspiring, but with no
further injury than a smart flogging from the twigs,
which indeed none of us entirely escaped. There
have been instances on this river of a man being
hooked up bodily by the formidable Uxcarta
308 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
gutanensis, and suspended in mid-air, whilst the raft
passed from under him.
Our deck now presented a lamentable sight, but
we had little time for ascertaining the amount of
damage, as at every turn a similar peril awaited us.
We, in fact, twice again ran into the bush, not
quite so violently as before, but each time adding
to the damage already sustained. We had calcu-
lated on reaching Caracol that day, and might
still have done so before nightfall, but that there
were some bad turns ahead, which, as the men
were already much fatigued, we could not expect to
pass without very great risk; so at 44 P.M. we
brought to, with some difficulty, at a place where
the bank was free from trees, and made fast for the
night. We then set to work to clear away the
wreck of sticks and leaves which strewed the raft,
and to repair the roof, which was completed by
moonlight. The cases had received only a few
slight cracks, and had none of them turned over,
but the leaves of the precious plants were sorely
maltreated. . . . As far as Caracol the fiven?een,
tinued narrow and winding, and at various points
we barely cleared the bushes, but nothing more
serious happened to us than the loss of a few loose
cloths, which were hooked up by a pendulous mass
of the Uncaria. From Caracol downwards the
river grew wider, and the banks were less over-
hung with wood, so that we went on with more
security. . . . Soon after nightfall we had got as far
as to where the influence of the tide was still felt,
and as it was ebbing we profited by it to hold on our
way until 2 o'clock of the following morning, when
the flood-tide obliged us to lay by. Thenceforward
fe ON A RAFT TO GUAYAQUIL 309
we got on slowly, on account of having to wait
between tides, but we reached Guayaquil at noon
@a the 27th without any further accident, and |
immediately went on shore and sought out a
carpenter, to assist Mr. Cross in nailing laths over
the soil and in fixing on the sashes. By 5 p.m. of
the 28th everything was completed. The plants,
thanks to Mr. Cross’s tender care of them, bore
scarcely any traces of the rough treatment they had
undergone in their descent from Limon, and in
their late voyage from Aguacatal, and the only
thing against them was that they were growing too
rapidly, owing to the increased temperature to
which they had lately been subjected.
Onerne. 20th, a laree goods steamer came in,
which goes to and fro between Lima and Guayaquil.
She was not to sail again until the 2nd of January,
and the plants, if sent by her, would have to remain
at Payta until the 13th or r4th, when another
steamer should pass from Lima to Panama; but, as
there was no alternative, we had them put on
board her, and commodiously arranged on the
poop-deck. I then took leave of Mr. Cross and
the plants, satisfied that so long as they were under
his care they were likely to go on prosperously,
and having done all I could on my part to conduct
the enterprise to a successful issue. During its
performance, all engaged in it had run frequent
risk of life and limb; but a far greater source of
anxiety to me were the contretemps (a few only
of which have been indicated in the preceding
pages) that every now and then threatened to
bring our work to naught. It is difficult for those
B10 NOTES OF (A BOTANTSs CHAP.
who live in a country of peace and plenty, but
above all of good roads, to appreciate the obstacles
that beset all undertakings in countries where none
of those blessings exist aa.
[It only remains to say that Spruce’s long-
continued labour and extreme care were crowned
with success. The young plants reached India in
good condition, and the seeds germinated and
served as the starting-point of extensive plantations
on the Neilgherry Hills in South India, in Ceylon,
in Darjeeling, and elsewhere.
The latest reports from the India Office, which
I owe to the kindness of Sir Clements Markham,
seem to show that none of the districts where the
plantations have been made are really suitable,
either in climate or soil, to the natural requirements
of the trees. This is indicated by two facts. It is
stated that although the trees grow well when
young, yet they suffer from dryness of the soil in
the dry season, so that artificial watering sometimes
has to be resorted to. It is also stated that it has
been found necessary to resort to the application of
large quantities of stable manure and lime to keep
the plants healthy.
In Sikhim the rainfall of 125 inches is said to be
distributed over less than 150 days, so that the
larger part of theyear is rainless. In the Neilgherries
violent winds are said to be very hurtful and some-
times destroy the larger trees,
Now the great feature of the native Cinchona
forests as described by Spruce is the prevalence of
rains almost throughout the year, and especially of
a constantly moist soil, kept so in dry weather by
BARK
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i
oe CINGCHONA TREES IN INDIA 211
the surface covering of leaves and leaf-mould. He
states that during the dry season, from June to
December, there was rain (more or less) on about ten
days in each month, and that during the whole six
months there were only thirty-one days on which
there was neither rain, mist, nor fog. This would
appear to be a very different type of climate from that
of either Sikhim or the Neilgherries, although the
mean temperature may not be very dissimilar. It
seems to me probable that the districts most nearly
approaching in climate to that of the Cinchona
forests would be the mountain slopes above 2000
meet, inj the Federated Malay States, or in the
Sarawak territory in Borneo, both of which have a
similar distribution of rainfall throughout the year.
dire oficial Report of June 1907 states “the
Cinchona industry in the Neilgherry is rapidly
diminishing,” and that many of the estates are
being abandoned, which can only be due to its
being not permanently profitable. Everything
therefore seems to point to the fact that the best
natural conditions for the growth of these valuable
trees has not yet been found. |]
Char) Ek Soa
ON THE SHORES OF THE PACIFIC: SPRUCE’S LAST
THREE YEARS IN SOUTH “AMERICA
{|Durtnc the whole of this period Spruce was
struggling hard against the severe illness which
prostrated him for the remainder of his life. The
list of his Botanical Excursions gives a connected
view of his movements in search of health, and the
few letters he wrote to his friends give a sufficiently
vivid picture of his life and occupations, when he
could do little more than rest and make those
minute observations on the country and the people
which were his chief consolation during the weari-
some years of forced inactivity.
One result of these observations was an elaborate
paper of 80 pages, on the district of Piura, in
which he resided for nearly two years, more
especially in relation to the cultivation of cotton
there. This paper was published by the Foreign
Office, but is now out of print; and as it describes
a district very rarely visited by European travellers,
I here reproduce those portions of it (about one-third
of the whole) which are of general or botanical
interest. They also serve to show how carefully
Spruce utilised his opportunities for scientific obser-
vation, even under the most adverse conditions. |
B12
CH. XXII
” ih
Feb.—
March—
April—
May-
June.
ce pa it
Bron ED,
» 25.
July 30-31-
Aug.—Dec.
1862.
Ae a2
J 3
aon
eel @:
ON THE PACIFIC COAST 313
BOTANICAL EXCURSIONS, 1861 To 1864
On this day the steamer left for Panama with plants
of Red Bark on board.
Voyage up river Daule.
Reached the village of Daule, where I established
myself for the rainy season at a farmhouse called
La Bella--Union. Remained at Daule until
June 11, collecting a littlke now and then when
breaks in the weather allowed me to wander
about, which I did to the limits of my strength,
viz. within a radius of half a mile.
Descended to a small village called Pascuales.
- From Pascuales to Guayaquil.
Embarked this evening at Guayaquil and reached
Daule the following morning.
Remained at Daule till the end of July; then, being
very sick, I descended to Chonana—the farm of
the late General Illingworth, where his. son-in-law
Dr. Destruge (my physician) was residing along
with Mr. William Illingworth. There I remained
till the end of the year. In September the house
of Gutierrez failed at Guayaquil, whereby I lost
6000 dollars, nearly all I had.
Remained at Chonana until the middle of this month.
I collected very little there, and my chief occupa-
tion (when able to work at all) was writing out the
Report of my Expedition to procure seeds and
plantonot= the ved “Bark. From: Chonana I
descended to Guayaquil, and near the end of the
month proceeded thence by sea to Chanduy, on
the arid coast of the Pacific, a little way out of the
Gulf of Guayaquil to the north.
All these months at Chanduy, on the very borders
of the sea, making desperate attempts to take
exercise, but on the whole going back rather
than forward. Unexpected heavy rains in the
month of March brought out an interesting vegeta-
tion on the desert. Even lakes were formed
there, which soon became peopled with aquatics.
With great toil I managed to collect and preserve
specimens of everything. I obtained also a few
seaweeds and zoophytes on the rocky shore.
Started on return voyage to Guayaquil.
Passed the Isle of Puna and lay by to await the tide
a little below Guayaquil.
Bene
March—
4.
Apnil—
May-
June—July—
August—
September.
Oct-10:
» «23:
9 24-
Nowe
Dec. 22.
1864.
Jan. 26-
February—
March—
April 20.
+P) 3°.
ite
May
Cot oN
NOTES-.OF A-BOtTANISa CHAP.
Reached Guayaquil this morning. From this date
to the end of the yéar at Guayaquil trying to
redeem some of my lost property.
At 11 A.M. embarked on board the steamer for Peru.
Reached Payta at 9 a.M. Hired mules, and at 6 P.M.
started to cross the desert by night.
Reached Piura (48 miles) at to A.M.
From this date I remained at Piura until the roth of
October. When, in consequence of rains in the
Andes, the dried-up bed of the river became over-
flowed (March 14) and ran with .a considerable
stream to the sea for a few months, a scanty
vegetation appeared on its banks, of which I
secured specimens,
Travelled from Piura back to Payta.
From Payta to Amotape on the river Chira.
From this date until the end of the year on the river
Chira; until December 22 at the vilzee=iof
Amotape, afterwards at Monte Abierto, higher
up the valley.
This day returned to Amotape.
Remained there through the following months until
April 20, then journeyed to Payta by way of
Colan.
Rest of month at Payta.
Embarked for England on board the Pacific mail-
steamer.
Reached Panama, 6 P.M.
Across the Isthmus.
Sailed.
This morning landed at Southampton, after an
absence from England of 15 years all but 1o days.
To Mr. George Benthan
DAULE, NEAR GUAYAQUIL, March 9, 1861.
My mode of working is this. When I bring
home freshly-gathered plants, I make notes on
them in books prepared for the purpose, and add
numbers.
If any plant seems strange to me, I
keep flowers, etc., in water to await a spare interval
a
eo ee ee
= ON THE PACIFIC COAST 315
when I can analyse them microscopically. So soon
as the plants are dried I pack them into other paper
ema ada the labels from my notes. As it often
happens that, at each packing, I have not two plants
of even the same natural order, the risk of trans-
position is very small. Indeed, so completely does
the reading over of my notes recall the features of
the plants, that I feel sure if I were shown the
whole of my plants classified in your herbarium,
and on blank paper, I could, from consulting my
notes, put to them the proper numbers and localities
without making perhaps a single mistake. As to
positive errors of observation, I am as liable as any
other mortal. I would wish to speak with all
modesty on that head ; and working often in boats,
or in dismal huts where a squall would suddenly
enter the open doorway and disperse both specimens
and labels, there must occasionally have been some
transposition of both in gathering them up again.
This risk of the blowing away or dropping out of
labels was, in fact, what made me give up putting
labels to the plants as they were drying.
I have gathered a few plants since I came here, but the rainy
season is now reaching its height and all around I have deep
mud and water. ‘The village is scarcely 300 yards from the farm-
house where I live, yet I cannot go thither on foot, except with
india-rubber boots. Cafraria peruviana (Scroph.) grows about
in moist places as Coutoubea spicata (Gentians) does on the
Amazon, and looks not unlikeit. The arborescent vegetation is
scanty but novel. The finest tree is a Cesalpinia with bipinnate
mimoszeoid foliage—I cannot reduce it to any described genus.
There are several arborescent Capparides—all new to me; but
Crateva tapioides is an old acquaintance, and abounds as it did
on the Amazon. The Leguminosz are mostly out of flower
now, but I recognise none of them by the foliage, unless one
be Bowdichia pubescens. Guayaquil is noted for its fruits, and
the abundance and variety brought to the port for sale every
morning in summer are truly astonishing. Many of them come
316 NOTES OF A BOTANISS CHAP.
from a good way up the various rivers, and there are many wild
fruits. The latter include two “cherries” ; one of them is so like
the fruit of Averrhoa Bilimbi (Oxalideze) in appearance that I did
not think it could be anything else. The tree abounds at Daule
and is now in flower; it is a Combretacea, allied to Terminalia!
The other cherry is a Malpighiacea—very different from the
Bunchosias or “ Friar’s plums,” and probably a Byrsonima. Two
‘“‘plums” are surely species of Spondias. A drupe, called Pechiche,
the size of a large cherry, but black, and with a mawkish sweet
taste, though excellent for preserve, is the fruit of a Vitex. There
are also many Sapotaceous fruits not seen elsewhere. I hope to
make them all out and to send specimens of the fruits in spirit.
I have unfortunately very little strength left for work of any kind,
and the squalls that come on suddenly when the sun is hot and
penetrate the chinks of these bamboo walls make me feel some-
times as “roomackity ” as I did in the Sierra. Piura would have
been the place for me—they say the most obstinate rheumatisms
can’t withstand the climate of Piura. But I do not like the idea
of living in the midst of a desert.
I was beginning to work @ mon ordinaire when I had the
misfortune to scald my right foot severely, and had to endure a
tedious vesication and afterwards a painful ulceration. Eighteen
days of it stretched in a hammock, and unable to tread the
ground. I did not mind the pain so much as the lost time.
Zo Mr. John Teasdale
GUAYAQUIL, June 22, 1861.
It is singular that the greatest range of
temperature occurs here in the summer or dry
season, while in the wet season it is more equable
but more oppressive. We are now entering on the
summer, and it is surprising how rapidly the water
and mud dry up off the savannas; for no more
rain falls, and we begin to have strong westerly
breezes, continuing sometimes through the night.
Guayaquil is not unhealthy from June to January,
and if they had built the city lower down the Gulf
it might have been healthy all the year round.
The island of Puna, where Pizarro first landed, is
XXII Oa PACIFIC COAST Biz
very healthy, but now almost uninhabited. The
little towns along the coast to northward are also
healthy, and~noted for the longevity of their
inhabitants.
The vegetable products of cool regions become
excessively scarce and dear here in the rainy
season, when all import of goods from the highlands
of the Andes is suspended, although those moun-
tains lie within sight when the weather is clear.
At Daule potatoes were sold at 24d. and apples
at 5d. apiece; while at the same time potatoes were
selling at Ambato, only 80 miles away, at Is. 3d.
the sack.
Lo Mr. John Teasdale
CHANDUY, NEAR GUAYAQUIL, May 14, 1862.
. . . Lhe rains—or, as we say here, the winter-—
came on at Chonana in the middle of January, when
[ descended to Guayaquil, and shortly afterwards
went on to Chandtiy—a small village on the shores
of the Pacific, at 24 days’ journey by sea from
Guayaquil, and a little north of the island of Puna.
Here it scarcely ever rains, beyond a slight drizzle
in the morning, occasionally—the same as at Lima—
and throughout the year 1861 there was but one
day of heavy rain. This present year, however,
we have had a real rainy season that began in
February and lasted through most of March. It
has been the first rainy season since 1845, and
we had actually one night a thunderstorm, a
phenomenon that had not previously been witnessed
here by even “the oldest inhabitant” (and there
are some centenarians). With so dry a climate
normally, you may well suppose the vegetation is
318 NOTES OF A BOTANIS1
very scanty; yet there are even a few scattered
trees, of humble growth, some of which grow down
to the very beach. The species that most abound
are a stout branched Cactus (Cereus peruvianus),
growing to 30 feet, truncheons of whose trunk serve
the people for stools; and a beautiful Jacquinia
(/. armillarts) of the same height. The latter has
somewhat the aspect of the Holly, from the dark
green, rigid, spiny-pointed leaves; but the flowers,
which are very numerous, are of a deep vermilion
and very sweet-scented ; and they are succeeded by
fruits resembling small oranges in colour and shape,
although uneatable and narcotic, and used by the
inhabitants for stupefying fish. When I arrived
here, with the exception of these and a few other
shrubby trees, and of a winding green line of
mangroves (marking the course of a creek), the
whole country had the aspect of a barren sandy
waste. Even the range of hills that runs parallel
to the coast at a distance of one to two leagues
showed only brown and withered shrubs. But
when it began to rain a change came o’er the face
of nature more sudden and surprising than even
that of a bright spring succeeding a severe winter
in Europe. = “The desert blossomed like whemases
The sandy plains became in a few days clad with
verdure : curious and pretty grasses, most of which
I had not even seen elsewhere ; flowering annuals,
including a Polygala—not prettier than the Milk-
wort of our English heaths, but of nobler growth
(1 to 2 feet) and bearing long spikes of roseate
flowers ; patches of apparently dead brush, scattered
' The genus Jacquinia belongs to the Myrsinaceze, an order allied to the
primroses.—ED.
ae ON THE PACIFIC COAST 319
over the savanna, burst suddenly into leaves and
flowers. All this was interesting enough, but there
was a reverse to the picture. As a shower of rain
is such a rare event at Chanduy, the inhabitants
think their houses sufficiently protected by a slight
roof of the leaves of Arrow-cane (Gynerium sp.),
through which the heavy and continued rains of
the present year have passed as through a sieve.
Figure to yourself, then, my dwelling flooded by
night—bed and everything else soaked—so much
wet out of doors that I could not take even such
exercise as my slender forces permitted, and it
will not surprise you to learn that I had a severe
attack of jaundice. AQ little after the equinox the
weather grew drier and cooler, and my illness
began to leave me, although I have still not quite
shaken it off.
The sea-breezes, which blow from the west and
south-west, are strong and cool. We have already
had the thermometer once down to 6637, and in
June and July we may expect to see it still lower.
I walk about as much as [ can, and amuse myself
with gathering and preserving the flowers, although
they are now fast drying up. ‘The beach is rather
too steeply inclined to be pleasant to walk on, and
shells and seaweeds are rather scarce; but the antics
of the burrowing crabs are diverting, and especially
their battles with my dog, who disinters them from
their holes in the sand. It is singular, however,
to have been nearly four months by the seashore
and only to have eaten fish three times, nor once
fo have gone out in a boat... . .
The industry of the Chanduyenians, who are
nearly all pure Indians, is almost limited to the
320 NOTES OF A SOTANISa CHAP.
plaiting of Panama hats and to gathering Orchilla
(Roccella tinctoria), which abounds here on the
trees—especially the Cactuses—as it does also in
the neighbouring islands of Galapagos. They fish
very little, and that merely for their own eating.
... Lhe failure of the house of- Guiierez
and Co. at Guayaquil was a heavy blow to me.
When it suspended payment (October 11, 1861) I
had in their hands very nearly a thousand pounds—
4700 at interest and the rest in deposit. I have
received the balance of interest due to me at that
date, but the residue, viz. 5550 dollars (Peruvian
or Equatorian), remains to share the fate of the
other debts of the firm, and if I ultimately recover
a thousand dollars of it I shall think myself well off.
The blow was so sudden that I had no time to with-
draw my property, especially as I was at two days’
distance from Guayaquil (at Chonana with the
Illingworths). Even Gutierrez himself did not
comprehend how it had happened ; but all has come
to light now, and it is proved to have been caused
entirely by the roguery of the cashier (Gavino Icaza)
and of the head book-keeper (Thomas Viner Clarke,
an Englishman, I am sorry to say), who, acting in
collusion, have robbed Gutierrez to the amount of
360,000 dollars, and possibly more. Not only had
they from time to time appropriated large sums of
ready money—making the monthly balance (shown
to Gutierrez) always tally with the cash in the cash-
box, but they had shipped vast quantities of cacao
and other produce from the warehouses of Gutierrez
(unknown to him) under feigned names, and con-
signed to houses abroad which had no existence ;
and Clarke, in whom his patron reposed unbounded
XXII ONZE re ACIETC COAST 321
confidence, having been sent to Europe last year
to purchase goods, returned with a quantity of un-
saleable trash and with forged invoices, Clarke took
himself off to England immediately after the smash,
and was bearing off also 7000 dollars from the cash-
box ; but Gutierrez missed the money, followed him
on board, and took it off his person in the sight of
many witnesses. In almost any other country he
would immediately have been incarcerated, but they
manage matters otherwise here. Icaza walks about
Guayaquil holding his head as high as ever; and
as he is a scion of one of the zod/e houses of the
country, Gutierrez dare not proceed against him by
law, which would expose him to the risk of having a
knife stuck into him at the turning of some street
Gormer after nightfall... .
Lo Mr. Dantel Hanbury
GUAYAQUIL, /Vov. 29, 1862.
My pear Str— Your last letter shows plainly
that you consider your correspondent both listless
and dilatory. He confesses to both, and can show
ample cause. If you knew how entirely disabled I
am; how rarely I can sit to a table to do anything,
but must write, eat, etc., in my hammock; how I
cannot walk except for short distances, nor ride on
horseback without being in danger of falling from
an arm or a leg suddenly turning stiff, you would
surely not be surprised at my want of activity. I
had never calculated on losing the use of my limbs,
and yet nothing was more likely to happen, if the
sort of life I led be considered. When after loss
of health came wreck of fortune, simple though my
wants be and modest as were my aspirations, I felt
Or), 1 : Y
eee NOTES OF 2 BOTAN ISS CHAP.
for a time completely prostrated. The fact is, I
have been too constant to botany; several times in
the course of my travels I might have taken to some
occupation far more lucrative; and I have met
many men who, beginning without a cent, have
made more money in two or three years than [| in
thirteen, and that without being exposed to thunder-
storms and pelting rain, sitting in a canoe up to the
knees in water, eating of bad and scanty food once
a day, getting no sleep at night from the attacks of
venomous insects, to say nothing of the certainty
of having every now and then to look death in the
face, as I have done.
Excuse these personal details, which I have not
entered into with any hope or desire of exciting sym-
pathy, but simply to explain that, although still in the
midst of objects interesting to the inquirer into the
productions and processes of nature, I can pay little
heed to them.
[Spruce then describes how he tried to obtain
specimens of the flowers, etc., of a particular balsam
tree Mr. Hanbury was very anxious to obtain ; but
after paying the owner of the forests ten dollars to
send an Indian to fetch them, he received a mule-load
of branches none of which possessed a single flower
or fruit, to obtain which one or two more journeys
would have to be made at different seasons. He
then proceeds :—|
When I came out to the Amazon I resolved
never to take a specimen of a gum or resin without
gathering specimens of the tree producing it; in
which | did very wrong, for I thus lost the oppor-
tunity of securing good specimens of many gums,
etc., brought by the Indians to the towns for sale ;
MEL! ON ELE PACIFIC COAST 323
and when | afterwards fell in with the trees pro-
ducing them, there was either no gum to be had
or merely small fragments, sufficient for identifica-
tion with larger masses, but not worth sending as
specimens to England. The collection of balsams,
gums, resins, etc., is a task requiring an Indian’s
patience. Mostly they must be gathered drop by
drop, or incisions must be made and the trees visited
after the lapse of months to get the lumps of coagu-
lated juice. I was unfortunate in some things I
jfecto collect on a large scale. . For instance, |
took with me down the Rio Negro a demiohn of
the Sassafras of that river, and several demijohns
of a beautifully white and transparent Oil of Copaiba,
procured on the Siapa, intending to send them to
England and ascertain their commercial value ;
but the person who took them down to Para not
only received the freight beforehand, but sold the
articles there on his own account instead of delivering
them to my correspondent. |
| With this letter Spruce sent dried specimens of
a gum-producing tree which grew about a mile and
a half from the village of Chanduy, and which after
several attempts he succeeded in reaching—“ though
I had to lie down many times by the way.” He
then concludes thus :|
This is, I think, all your correspondent has to
send you this time. You will see he is now good
for little else besides talking and writing—even the
latter is painful to him and can be done only reclin-
ing in the hammock; but if you will have patience
with him, he will still try to obtain for you any
information within his reach.—Very faithfully yours,
RICHARD SPRUCE.
324 NOTES OF A BOTANIST ie
[Who can wonder that, after the receipt of such
a letter as this, Hanbury and Spruce became, for
the remainder of their joint lives, the most attached
and sympathetic of friends! ]
Lo Mr. fohn Teasdale
PIURA, PERU, Jam. 32, 1g 3:
I embarked at Guayaquil, on the night of the ist
of January, on the steamer that plies between that
port and Lima, my destination being Payta, and
thence overland to Piura.
At 9 aM. of the 3rd we reached Payta, and by
noon I had got my baggage through the custom-
house, and hung up my hammock in the only fonda
in the place. But I only remained there a few
hours to get together the mules required for the
journey to Piura—45 miles across the desert. It
is usual to travel here by night, the burning heat
of the desert by day causing great (and sometimes
mortal) fatigue to man and beast. I was myself
conveyed ina litter, being unable to sit on a horse
for more than an hour ata time. We started at six
in the evening, and at nine on the following morn-
ing reached Piura, having rested three hours at a
tambo erected at midway of the route, where lucerne
and water can be had for the beasts, and coffee,
bread, and chicha for their riders, by paying a high
price for them. The track is still indicated, in some
parts, by long poles stuck in the ground, as it was
in the time of the Incas; in other parts 4sy) ame
rare Algarroba trees, which are almost the sole
vegetation, where there is any at all. Woe to the
XXII ONetie PACIFIC COAST 325
traveller who strays from these landmarks: he soon
gets bewildered among the médanos or shifting
hills of sand, and finds his grave in one of them.
To see the sun setting over this desert is like look-
ing into the red-hot mouth of a furnace, and there
is usually a lull in the wind at that hour; but he
has barely disappeared when a rapid refrigeration
sets in, the night-wind sweeps over the desert, and
at daybreak the cold is as sensible (of course not
so intense) as on the paramos of the Andes.
Piura is one of the driest places in the world,
and in ‘‘ winter,” as it is called (December to April),
one of the hottest. Yet it is very healthy, catarrhal
complaints, caused by the violent winds charged with
sand, being the only prevalent ones. The site is
a very curious one to have been chosen for a city.
There is a river, it is true, but for six months in the
year its bed is dry. It is now raining hard in the
Andes, where its sources are, and some time next
month the water is expected to reach Piura.
March 27, 1863.—. . . We are just now passing
through the hottest fit of weather I ever experi-
enced. Fancy a minimum thermometer at 85°,
which has usually been the lowest temperature in
the twenty-four hours ever since the 1st of March;
indeed, up to the present date, it has only three
times been as low as 83. It is true that through-
out the same period the thermometer has never
risen higher than 89°; but such sustained and
nearly uniform heat induces great languor. The
hottest part of the year is considered to be almost
past, and the months to come will get gradually
cooler. Although Piura cannot be said to havea
220 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
pleasant climate, there can be no doubt of its general
healthiness when one sees how many very old people
are in it. On the 16th of the present month an old
lady died here at the age of one hundred and eleven |
Her living descendants, including some great-great-
grandchildren, are said to be exactly as many as the
years of her life.
Piura is considered the sovereignest place on
earth for the cure of “rheumatic” (dege ‘‘ syphilitic ”)
affections. Many wonderful cures are reported ;
but the treatment is rather severe. It is as follows:
First, you pay the priest to say ‘‘novenas ’—that is,
masses on nine consecutive days—on your behalf ;
on each of these days you drink copiously of a warm
decoction of sarsaparilla towards midday, and then
your friends take you outside the town and bury
you up to the neck in the burning sand, shielding
your head with a broad straw hat and an umbrella.
There you perspire in such a way as to bring out
all the mercury you may have taken, and to reduce
your swollen joints to their proper dimensions.
Now you may see the use of the masses, for if you
survive the operation (which is not always) they
serve to express your thankfulness; and if you die
under it, you will need not only those nine masses,
but several additional ones—for which you make
due provision in your last will and testament—to
secure the repose of your soul.
Piura is perhaps the most superstitious place |
have seen in South America, although Quito is far
gone that way; but I can tolerate even superstition
when it is harmless and picturesque. As I write,
at 8 p.m. of the eve of “Nuestra Senora demic:
Dolores,” the bells are ringing to call the devout
XXII ONY Pir Evel keiC COAST 327
to a procession in her honour, and gaily-dressed, |
life-size figures of that sorrowful lady are set up
under sparkling canopies at the corners of the prin-
cipal streets. On this day, ladies who rejoice in
the name of ‘“ Dolores” (and in Catholic countries
they are legion) invite their friends to eat sweet-
meats and to drink wine and chicha with them.
Even I, old bachelor and foreigner as I am, have
received several such invitations, and one Dolores
has gone the length of sending me a pair of garters
embroidered in blue, red, and white silk! Vanztas
vanitatum/ Yet even this medizval fooling 1s
better than the unmitigated money-seeking (by
fair means or foul), and as reckless and luxurious
spending, of Guayaquil.
Sometimes our superstitions are rich in historical
souvenirs. When that most valiant of Pizzaro’s
warriors, Pedro de Candia, leapt on shore at Tum-
bez, he carried in his hand a@ cross, extemporised
from two bits of firewood. The inhabitants let
loose on him ‘‘a lion” and a tiger, who, instead of
attacking him, prostrated themselves before the
cross, etc. etc. A piece of that famous cross is pre-
served on the altar of one of the churches of Piura,
and the church itself is dedicated to La Santa Cruz
del Milagro (The Holy Cross of the Miracle).
Noto ON THE VALLEYS OF PIURA-AND CHIRA,
IN NORTHERN PERU!
TOPOGRAPHY AND MINERALOGY
Along the western side of South America, extending from near
the Equator on the N. to about Coquimbo in Chile, latitude 30°
5., there is a strip of land, included between the Pacific and the
1 Extracts from the Foreign Office Paper by R. Spruce.
BOS NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
Andes, which has been upraised from the ocean at no very remote
period, and is still nearly as destitute of vegetation as the Sahara
of Africa. It is, however, watered by a few rivers, some of which
rise in the summits of the Andes, and run with a permanent
stream into the ocean, diffusing fertility and perennial verdure
throughout the valleys they traverse; others, rising in the lower
hills which form an outwork of the great chain, carry a consider-
able volume of water to the sea during the rainy season, but for
the rest of the year the lower part of their course is dry. By far
the most important of these rivers is the Guayaquil, whose
affluents drain the slopes of the loftiest portion of the western
equatorial Andes (including the mighty Chimborazo), and on
issuing into the plain form a network of navigable streams which
at the city of Guayaquil combine into a noble river. ~
The northern limit of the Peruvian desert is usually placed
about Tumbez, at the southern extremity of the Gulf of Guayaquil,
in latitude 3° 30° S., but I now know, from personal inspection,
that the coast of the Pacific north of the gulf has the same
geological conformation, the same climate, and almost as scanty a
vegetation as it has south of it. At what point to northward the
struggle between barrenness and fertility begins to be equally
balanced, I am unable to say, but I am inclined to place it about
Cape Pasado, at the mouth of the river Chones. Guayaquil itself,
as seen from the river, with its groves of coco palms and fruit
trees, and its picturesque wooded hills, might be supposed a
region of forests ; but the moment we pass the skirts of the city to
westward we find that the country is nearly all savanna, either
open and grassy or scattered over with bushes and low groves,
and that the woods are confined to the hills and to the borders of
salt-creeks. As we descend the river from Guayaquil (ze. to
southward), the ground on the right margin, beyond the mangrove
fringe, grows more and more open, and at the southernmost point
of the mainland, or the northern entrance to the gulf, where
stands the village of El Morro, at the foot of a steep rounded hill,
the ground is already nearly as bare of vegetation as the coast of
Peru. Throughout this distance, and thence northward along the
shores of the Pacific to beyond Point St. Elena, there is no stream
of fresh water, although there are a few salt-creeks ; but in latitude
I’ 55S. we come on the river Manglar-alto, along whose banks
there is vigorous vegetation, as there is also on similar small
streams entering at wide intervals to northward; while the inter-
mediate ground is either nearly desert or is a sort of savanna,
sparsely set with bushes and cactuses, and bare of herbs except
after the rare and exceptional rains.
About Cape San Lorenzo (latitude 1° 5’ S.) the coast is bold
and broken, and almost completely clad with low bushy vegeta-
tion. In the village of the same name, which nestles in the bay
XXII ON tahoe ACTETC- COAST 329
to southward of the cape, at the mouth of a small stream, the
houses stand mixed with Coco palms and Plantains, and steep
wooded declivities rise at the back. Yet on rounding the point
to northward, we come again to a half-open country at the village
of Manta and the town of Monte Cristo, a few miles inland ; or,
as Funnell says of it, “the land hereabout is very barren,
producing only a few shrubby trees and some small bushes.” !
A little farther northward, on the river Chones, there is real
forest, from which much timber is obtained for Guayaquil. ‘The
Chones falls into the Bay of Caraques, which was an important
harbour in the early days of Spanish rule, but has now become
useless to navigators through the gradual accumulation of sand at
the mouth of the river. The northern extremity of this bay is
Cape Pasado, whereof Funnell says: “This Cape Passao is a high
round cape, with but few trees on it. It lies in the latitude of
o 8S... . within the cape the land is pretty high and moun-
tainous ana very woody.”
From Cape Pasado to Cape San Francisco would seem to be
the real neutral ground, the heavy rains which prevail every year
from April to November along the coast of New Granada and
Mexico, up to latitude 23° 30’ N., reaching to southward in some
years as far as Cape Pasado, and in others stopping short at Cape
San Francisco.
The coast we have been considering stretches out to westward,
and recedes from the western ridge of the Andes at least 150 miles ;
but if we return to Guayaquil and descend the gulf or estuary
along its left or eastern bank, we find that at a very few miles
inland the ground begins to swell, and rapidly rises to the lofty
ridges of the Andes, having the frigid paramo of Azuay to the
north. From these mountains descend several streams to the
gulf, and the atmosphere is highly charged with humidity, in con-
sequence of which this coast is clad with lofty continuous forest.
At ‘Tumbez, the southern entrance of the gulf, where the shore
again trends to westward and recedes from the Cordillera, the
intervening plain becomes wider, drier, and barer of vegetation as
we advance to southward, save where a broad verdant band marks
the course of the river Tumbez, whose sources lie in the paramo
of Saraguru and other highlands to northward of Loja.
The coast continues to extend to westward until reaching Capes
Blanco and Parina, the westernmost land in South America ;. then
turns southward, and in latitude 4° 55’ S. the river Chira enters
the bay of Payta, which, although a mere open roadstead, affords
the most secure and commodious anchorage of any port along the
whole coast of Peru. Beyond Payta is the mouth of Piura and
the town of Sechura, which sometimes gives its name to the whole
1 A Voyage Round the World, by W. Funnell, mate to Capt. Dampier.
BO NOGES OF “At BOTANITsH CHAP.
river. I propose here to treat of the lower part of these two rivers,
and especially of the Chira, in some detail.
The configuration of the coast-region from Cape Blanco to and
beyond the Piura is as follows :—On the western margin rise steep
cliffs to a height of from 200 to 300 feet, either directly from the
sea or with an intervening beach uncovered at low-water, and
usually with a low reef of rocks at about half-tide, whereon even
the gentle waves of the Pacific break in a dangerous surf. Having
surmounted the cliff, we are on what is called the tablazo, a
plateau rising very gently to eastward, in some places slightly
undulated, and in others with ridges of considerable height rising
out of it, the whole so bare of vegetation that there are places
where not a single tree, much less an herb, can be distinguished
within the limits of vision. A bold abrupt ridge, called the Silla
de Payta, rises immediately to southward of that town to a height
(according to Captain Kellett) of 1300 feet; but a far more
important range of hills, beginning from near the sea, a little to
northward of the mouth of the Chira, runs with a direction of
E.N.E. all the way up between the rivers Chira and Tumbez, till
it mingles with the Andes towards the sources of the latter
river. . . . I suppose these hills to .rise; even im their westerm
part (which is all I have seen of them), to from 2000 to 3000
feet; to eastward, as they near the Andes, they must be far
higher. Viewed from the south, they appear entirely bare of
vegetation, but when they come to be examined their deep
ravines are found to contain a few scattered Cactuses, Algarrobos,
and other trees; and I am told that on their northern slope there
is considerably more permanent vegetation, much as on the hills
of Chanduy and St. Elena, which, although of far less extent,
have quite the same aspect and structure.
The country to southward of the river Piura is known as the
Despoblado (or Desert) of Sechura ; but in reality that term might
be extended to the whole desert region which stretches northward
to the skirts of the forests of the Gulf of Guayaquil, for the narrow
strip of vegetation along the courses of the Chira and Piura are
mere oases in that vast desert.
The deep valley along which the Chira flows to the sea has
plainly been excavated by the action of water, and if any
depression have originally existed on the tablazo along the same
line it must have been very slight, as there is now no appreciable
sloping towards it. Its sides are steep cliffs, scarcely at all
furrowed transversely on the southern side, but on the northern
side in most places very much broken up into ravines and
alternating peaked ridges, whose origin may be traced to the
effect of the rare but torrential rains descending the rugged slopes
wsitee.2”
XXII ON sr SElLPITC: COAST gic
of Mancora. The peaks are often truncated cones, so symmetrical
that until closely examined they might be supposed the work of
art.
. . . Ata little way within its mouth the river is only from 80
to 100 yards wide, and this average breadth is preserved, so far as
I can learn, for at least 50 miles up. It is of no great depth, for,
when at its lowest, a man may wade over it in most places with
at least his head out of water; but as the current is pretty strong,
and there are some deep holes, it is considered unsafe to ford it
on horseback. . . . Very rarely, and with risk and difficulty, are
heavy goods conveyed on a raft for a few miles up the stream.
There are no bridges across it, but ferries are established at the
villages and principal farms. The fluctuations of level throughout
‘the entire year rarely reach 1o feet, but in the anos de agua or
rainy years there have sometimes been floods to a much greater
height.
In ascending the valley of the Chira we come on a series of
alternating contractions and lake-like expansions, the latter at one
period no doubt really lakes. A little above the village of
Amotape, 11 miles from the sea, following the course of the river,
but only 7 in a straight line, the valley contracts, so that from the
base of the hills on one side to the base of those on the other
there is barely half a mile. From this point to above the small
village of Tangarara, on the right bank, a distance of 15 English
miles along the course of the river, there has been a large lake of
a long oval form, the ancient margin retiring from the actual river-
bank at one point on the north side nearly 3$ miles, and having
an average distance of 2 miles. Deep furrows, like river-courses,
extend from the widest part (called Monte Abierto) to the
adjacent hills, and in the rainy years rivers again run along them
and enlarge their beds. On the south side the space between the
river and the base of the cliffs is also of considerable breadth, and
has on it the villages of La Huaca and Bibiate in its lower part,
and higher up the large farm of Macacard, 10 miles from
Amotape.
There are similar contractions of the valley, with intermediate
lake-like expansions, up to 52 miles from the coast.
On examining the cliffs that bound the valley of the Chira, we
find them to consist chiefly of alternating horizontal layers of very
various composition, some of them apparently repeated at various
depths. The uppermost stratum is in many parts a calcareous
sandstone, of minute fragments of shells, grains of quartz, etc.,
more or less compactly welded together. When of open texture
it is the material for the filtering-stones, which are largely manu-
factured at Payta, and are not only used throughout the province,
but are exported to Guayaquil and other ports along the coast... .
Rae NOTES OF -A BOTANIS@ CHAP.
Below the sandstone (which is repeated lower down) there are
alternating layers of pudding-stone and shell-marl, the former
consisting of rounded pebbles united into a compact but some-
times fragile mass by an argillaceous cement. The pebbles are
nearly always egg-shaped, often the size of an ordinary hen’s egg,
and might seem water-worn, until being broken across they are
found to consist of concentric coatings, varying in their mineral
constituents but all more or less ferruginous. .
The shell-marl, or shell-rock as it might more properly be
called, is one mass of fragmentary crushed fossil molluscs, chiefly
bivalves and cirripeds, welded together by a tenacious ochry
cement, from which they are often with difficulty separated even
by the hammer. Rarely do both molluscs and cement yield to
the action of water. .
Beneath all these strata, which are so nearly horizontal that
there has plainly been no great convulsion since they were
deposited—and they are at least 200 feet thick—there is a bed of
compact argillaceous shales, which are tilted up at a considerable
angle. At Payta, where this deposit is of immense thickness and
apparently forms the great mass of the mountain called the Silla,
it puts on the appearance of slate, being of a dull dark blue
colour, and almost as hard as primary slate; but at Amotape
what is evidently the same formation is usually of a greyish colour,
and much more easily broken.
Returning to the surface—the plateau or tablazo—the most
remarkable feature is the quantity of white sea-sand that is
accumulated and driven about by the winds in many parts of it.
The whole country, however, is by no means covered with sand-
hills, as one might suppose from some accounts that have been
given of it. The great accumulation is in depressions and hollows
towards the northern and eastern sides of the desert, whither it
has been borne by the prevalent southerly and south-westerly
aWillld CS Sateen
In proceeding from Payta northwards towards the valley of the
Chira, we find the tablazo strewed with fragments of filtering-
stone, clay-stones, etc., but we come on no sand until nearing the
valley of the Chira, or even in some places (where the cliff is
steep) until descending into the valley itself. We then find the
cliff faced with sloping ridges of sand, blown over it by the wind,
sometimes reaching into the river itself, whose waters are
continually carrying off portions of them towards the sea. It is
curious to see old Algarrobo trees with merely their heads out of
the sand, but still growing and verdant; while others, entirely
suffocated, show no more than a few dead twigs above it. These
enormous ridged heaps are found all along the southern side of
the valley, but nowhere pass the river to northward, for the sand
XXII ON (ree ACE re -COAST 333
once blown over the cliff is sheltered by it from the further action
of the wind.
Piura lies nearly east from Payta, at a distance of 14 leagues,
during the first seven of which the tablazo rises gently and
equably, and the road is stony, or in some places dusty, but
nowhere sandy. At midway, which is also the highest point of
the route, there is a tambo or hospitium, where a supply is kept
of water and food for man and beast, chiefly brought from the
Chira with great trouble and expense. There the traveller,
having started from Payta about sundown, reposes during the
midnight hours, and starting again at 2 or 3 A.M., reaches Piura
before the sun has risen high enough to heat the desert. From
the tambo of Congora the ground descends for the remaining
seven leagues in gentle undulations towards the Piura (whose
valley has no steep limiting cliffs like the Chira), and the sandy
dunes at once begin, increasing in size and frequency as we
descend. ‘These dunes, or médanos as they are called, are
notable for their lunate or half-moon shape, sometimes beautifully
symmetrical, and having their convex side towards the trade-wind.
They are continually shifting and advancing, but in general it is
necessary to watch them for weeks to appreciate their motion.
If a day’s wind of more than usual violence disperse any of them,
then soon re-form to north-eastward; a casual protuberance of
any kind—a large stone or a mummified mule—being a sufficient
nucleus for a new médano. On such days the sand which fills
the air has all the appearance of a dense fog, and indeed at Piura
the sky is generally more or less obscured from the same cause
between 2 and 5 P.M. of every day.
The médanos I have seen near Piura are only from 8 to 12
feet in height, and yet that is quite high enough to render
it difficult for the horseman entangled among them to find
his way out, for one médano is almost the exact counterpart of
another. On the desert of Sechura, however, which is a vast
plain apparently depressed below the land immediately bordering
the coast, the sand is heaped up to a far greater height, and
I have been assured by an arriero that he has found shelter there
for the night, on the lee side of a médano, for his company of ten
men, thirty to forty mules, and all their baggage.
INDIGENOUS VEGETATION
Any person, even one accustomed to the study of and search
for plants, might travel through the whole extent of the deserts
of Piura and Sechura, and (excepting the strip of verdure along
the banks of the rivers) would confidently assert them to be
entirely destitute of herbaceous vegetation ; and yet three kinds
334 NOTES OF A BOTANTS® CHAP.
of herbs exist there, which, burying themselves deep in the earth,
survive through the long periods of drought to which they are
subjected. Some of the smaller médanos, especially those under
the lee of a low ridge of land, may be seen to be capped with
snowy white, contrasting with the yellowish or greyish white
which is the ordinary colour of the sand, and yet at a short
distance lable to be taken for sand a little whiter than common.
The whiteness, however, is that of the innumerable short cylin-
drical spikes of an Amarantacea, whose stems, originating from
beneath the medano, ramify through it, and go on growing so as
to maintain their heads always above the mass of sand, whose
unceasing accumulation at once supports and threatens to over-
whelm them.
The other two herbs of the desert are known to the natives,
the one as Yuca del monte or Wild Yuca, the other as Yuca de
caballo or Horse Yuca, from their having roots like those of the
cultivated yuca (AZanthot Ayfpt), or not unlike parsnips, but three
times as large. Both roots are edible, and the former is some-
times brought to market at Piura when the common yuca is
scarce. The Yuca de caballo is too watery to be cooked, but is
sometimes chewed to allay thirst by the muleteers and cowherds,
who detect its presence by the slightest remnant of the dried
stump of a stem; for both kinds maintain a purely subterranean
existence during many successive years, and only produce leafy
stems in those rare seasons when sufficient rain falls to penetrate
to the roots. A few animals that roam over the desert, such as
goats, asses, and horses, obtain a scanty supply of food and drink
from these yuca roots, which they scrape out with their hoofs.
The fruit of the Yuca de caballo may frequently be seen blowing
about the desert, looking more lke a pair of very long hooked
bird’s claws than anything vegetable. It is an elongated capsule
with a fleshy pericarp (incorrectly described as a drupe), termin-
ating in a beak several inches long, and when ripe splitting into
two valves, which remain united at the base and curl up so as to
resemble claws or ram’s horns. At Piura it is known by the not
very apposite name of espuelas or spurs. In Mexico the fruit
of an allied species is called Una del diablo or Devil’s Claws.
The Yuca de caballo is a Martynia, of the family of Gesnerez
(or, according to some, of Cyrtandracez). I was fortunate
enough to see a single plant of it with leaves and flowers in 1863,
near the river Piura, on ground which the inundation had barely
reached, but had sufficed to cause the root to shoot forth its
stems, which spread on the ground, branching dichotomously, to
the distance of a yard on all sides. The roundish leaves, clad
with viscid down, are lobed much in the same way as those of
some gourds, but the large sweet-smelling flowers are like those
of a foxglove.
XXII ON PHP ePACIFIC COAST — 335
I have never seen either leaves or Howers of the Yuca del
monte ; but, from the description given me of it, I should suppose
it a Convolvulacea, allied to the sweet potatoes (Batatas), and the
lanceolate leaves point to the genus Aniseia.
The arborescent vegetation of the desert, although perhaps
really more scanty than the herbaceous, is from its nature more
conspicuous wherever it exists. There are points from which not
a single tree is visible all around the horizon, but they are rare ;
generally the view takes in a few widely-scattered trees growing
in basin-shaped hollows or towards the base of slopes, where at
a certain depth there is permanent moisture throughout the wide
interval between the anos de aguas, at which epochs the supply
is renewed. Wells dug in such sites reach water (too brackish
for drinking) at various depths, the first deposit often at only
autew feet trom the surface. ‘The moisture derived from the
garuas, scanty as it 1s, no doubt aids in keeping the desert plants
alive; and we have already seen that the air is never so ex-
cessively dry as might be supposed, but, on the contrary, some-
times approaches complete saturation. ‘The trees of the desert
are the Algarrobo (/rosopis horrida), the Vichaya (Capparis
crotonoides), the Zapote del perro (Colcodendrum scabridum ?),
and an Apocynea with numerous slender branches, bright green
lanceolate acuminate leaves, axillary clusters of small white
flowers, and fruits, consisting of small twin drupaceous follicles,
which are slender, curved, and coated with a thin white flesh.
The Capparis and the Apocynea, although they grow to be trees
in favourable situations, as in valleys near the sea, are mere
shrubs on the desert; and the Prosopis and Colicodendron are
low trees of very scraggy growth, their branches all bent one
way by the prevailing wind, and the trunk itseif often semi-
prostrate.
Far away over the desert a tall branched Cactus begins to be
met with; the same species abounds on the desert-coast of
Ecuador. Farther still, near the roots of the Cordillera, the
vegetation becomes gradually more dense and varied, comprising
several other kinds of trees, and amongst them most of those
about to be mentioned as denizens of the valleys.
When the traveller across the despoblado comes suddenly on
one of the valleys, he passes at once from a desert to a garden,
whose charms are enhanced by their unexpectedness. Standing
on the cliff that overlooks the Chira, about Amotape, he sees at
his feet a broad valley filled with perpetual verdure, the great
mass of which is composed of the pale green foliage of the
Algarrobo ; but the course of the river that winds through it is
marked (even where the river itself is not seen) by lines or
groups of tall Coco palms, here and there diversified by the more
rigid Date palm, both growing and fruiting in the greatest
B20 NOTES OF A BOTANIST “CHAP:
luxuriance, their ample fronds never mutilated by caterpillars
as they are wont to be in other regions. On the river-bank
grow also fine old Willows (Sax Humboldtiana), noticeable for
their slender branches and long, narrow, yellow-green leaves,
contrasting strongly with the dark green of the spreading Guavas
(Ingze sp.), and with the bright green foliage (passing to rose at
the tips of the branches) of the Mango (Mangifera indica).
Mingled with these, or in square openings in the Algarrobo
woods, are cultivated patches of sweet potatoes, yucas, maize, and
cotton plants, the latter distinguishable by their pale but fresh
green colour. It was a magnificent sight to look from this cliff
towards the mouth of the Chira when the sun was just setting
over it, steeping the hills of Mancora in purple and violet, and
gilding the fronds of the palms and the salient edges of the
adjacent cliffs, while the deep recesses of the latter and the
Algarrobo woods were already shrouded in gloom.
On descending into the valley, the natural forest of Algarrobo
is found to occupy a strip of from a few hundred yards to three
or four miles in width, extending from the river on each side as
far out as there 1s permanent moisture at a moderate depth. It
is divided by fences into plots of various sizes, all private
property, except a small breadth of common lands adjacent to
each village. I was surprised to hear these plots called not
“woods” but “‘ pastures” (potreros), for the trees grow in them
as thickly as trees do anywhere, and there is not underneath
them an herb of any kind. They are so cailed because the fruit
of the Algarrobo is the main article of food for most of the
domesticated animals, and therefore corresponds to the pasturage
of other countries. ‘The Algarrobo is a prickly tree, rarely ex-
ceeding 4o feet in height, with rugged bark not unlike that of the
elm, but more tortuous, and with bipinnate foliage like that
of the Acacias, to which it is closely allied. The roots penetrate
the soil to only a slight depth, but extend a very long way
horizontally. On the desert I have seen an Algarrobo root,
no thicker than the finger, stretch away to a length of 4o yards,
evidently in quest of moisture. As the trunks never grow
straight, and soon become tolerably corpulent, and their roots
take too little hold of the friable earth to sustain them against
the squally winds, they very generally fall over in age either into
a reclining posture or quite prostrate, but immediately begin to
turn their heads upwards, send off new roots from every part of
the trunk in contact with the soil, and thus get up anew in the
world; so that an old potrero or Algarrobo wood has a most
irregular and fantastic appearance. Twice in the year the
Algarrobo puts forth numerous pendulous racemes of minute
yellow-green flowers, which nourish multitudes of small flies and
beetles, that in their turn afford food to flocks of birds—most of
XXII ON beer ACIPriCc COAST BEY
them songsters, and all of them more pleasantly garrulous than
any similar assemblage of little birds I have met with elsewhere
in the world. The flowers are followed by pendulous, flattish,
yellow pods, 6 to 8 inches long, about a finger’s breadth and half
as thick, containing several thin flat seeds, immersed in a
sweetish mucilaginous compactly spongy but brittle substance,
which is the nutritive part. These pods are greedily devoured
by horses, cows, and goats, but especially by asses, which are
more numerous than any other domestic animals. It is a very
concentrated and heating kind of food, and I have seen horses
after eating it chew the leaves of the castor-oil plant, or any kind
of rubbish, to counteract its stimulating properties. . . .
The Algarrobo secretes an inflammable gum-resin, which
exudes from cracks in the bark and coagulates into a blackish
mass. Advantage is taken of it to prostrate the trees by fire,
when it is required to clear the ground for cultivation. Cutting
them down is scarcely ever resorted to, the timber being so hard
as soon to render useless the best-tempered axe. The method
employed is this: A truncheon of wood, alight at one end, is
laid on the ground with that end touching the tree to windward.
The trunk soon takes fire, and (especially if the wind be strong)
is in a few hours burnt right through nearly horizontally, the part
destroyed rarely exceeding from half a foot to a foot in breadth ;
and being thus prostrated, its still burning end is covered with
earth to extinguish the fire. There is no better material for fuel
than Algarrobo wood, and its very great hardness and durability
would make it a most desirable timber for any kind of con-
struction, were it not that it grows so crooked and is so intractable
to work.
Potreros from which animals have been long excluded
sometimes grow so thick, from two kinds of lianas which fill up
the intervals of the trees, as to be impassable. A species of
Rhamnus, called Lipe, armed with formidable decussate spines,
and producing minute 4—5-merous flowers, followed by small edible
black berries, supports itself against the Algarrobos and climbs
high among their branches. When it grows alone and has
room to spread, it forms large round bushes, each many yards
in diameter, and 12 to 15 feet high. Bushes of Lipe, scattered
over the bare ground, look at a distance not unlike the small
groves of hollies or other evergreens that stud the sanded or
gravelled surface of an English shrubbery. In these bushes hide
by day numerous foxes, which come out by night in quest of food.
They are as fond of melons as A‘sop’s fox was of grapes, and do not
despise them even when green, so they can get at them. Lizards
and a few snakes also seek the shelter of the Lipe. Flocks of
small birds roost there by night, and by day pick the berries.
The companion of the Lipe is a rampant Nyctaginea (Crypto-
WOM, 1 Z
338 NOLES OFA BOTANIS® CHAP.
carpus). It climbs to the tops of the Algarrobos, and often hangs
therefrom in dense masses. It has heart-shaped stellato-pubescent
leaves and panicles of minute green flowers, which persist on the
enclosed black utricle. <A stout parasitical Loranthus, with small
yellowish flowers, often forms large bushes on the Algarrobo, and
generally ends by destroying the tree whereon it has established
itself.
A far handsomer tree than the Algarrobo sometimes grows
along with it, especially where there is rather more moisture than
usual; this is the Charan (Ceesalpinia). It is a widely-spreading
tree, often branched from the very base, and the shining reddish
bark is being constantly renewed. It has exceedingly graceful
bipinnate foliage—roseate at the tips of the branches—panicles
of yellow flowers, spotted with red, and thick deep-purple pods,
which are extensively used in tanning.
The Azota-Cristo or Whip-Christ (Parkinsonia aculeata), so
called from its excessively long pendulous leaves, from whose
thong-like rachis the small leaflets often fall away, is less hand-
some but still more uncommon-looking than the Charan, and it
is also much rarer in this region. It reappears in the Antilles.
A few other trees are occasionally met with, such as a
Calliandra, conspicuous for its numerous flowers—green tinged
with rose—out of which hang the long, silky, straw-coloured
stamens, and for its curled scarlet pods; two Acacias, one of
them the widely-dispersed 4. Farnestana; a Maytenus, which is
especially abundant at the mouth of the Chira, and is common
enough along the coast of Ecuador as far north as the Equator ;
and the Oberal ( Varronia rotundifolia), a solanaceous tree or shrub,
with numerous bright yellow trumpet-shaped flowers and white
berries, abounding in a viscid juice, which is used by the dusky
beauties of Guayaquil to straighten out their hair and hide its
natural chispiress:12 75.
The trees mentioned above as belonging to the desert grow
- also in the valley, and far more luxuriantly there, but generally
scattered along the outer margin of the Algarrobo belt, especially
wherever the soil is much impregnated with salt. The Zapote de
perro bears a large berry, not unlike a smallish melon in size,
shape, and the alternating green and white streaks. Its taste is
disagreeable, and I have not seen it touched by any animal,
although it is said to be eaten by dogs (as its name implies), and
also by foxes and goats. ‘The Vichaya, a dense growing bush,
with oval hoary leaves, has yellow berries the size of a damson,
containing a few stony seeds involved in a mawkish sweet pulp.
Another Capparis, which scrambles up into the trees, also grows
here, but rarely ; it is much more frequent near Guayaquil, as is
also the Vichaya, which is there called Cuchuchu. In fact, all the
trees and shrubs hitherto mentioned (with one or two exceptions)
XXII ON Gene Serreic COAST 339
grow also on the desert coast of Ecuador, along with a few others
not found in Northern Peru.
In the ravines which run from the tablazo down to the valley,
besides a few stunted Algarrobos, there is another small prickly
tree, a species of Cantua, with black stems and branches, which
becomes clad with fugacious, roundish, Loranthus-like leaves and
pretty white flowers only in the rainy years. ‘There also grows a
Cactus cailed Rabo de zorra (fox’s brush), from its usually simple
stems being densely beset on the numerous angles or strize with
reddish bristle-like prickles.
Oni the margin of the river, except where the banks are
unusually high, there is a narrow strip of land, called the vega,
which is overflowed every year about February or March by the
flush of water from the Andes, although no rain may have fallen
in the plain. The vega is in many parts of the valley the only
ground kept under cultivation, and the indigenous vegetation
there is of a quite distinct character. Instead of the Algarrobo,
we have the Willow and a small Composite tree, Zessaria /egitima,
with leaves very like those of Sal¢x cinerea, and soft brittle wood,
which is the common fuel at Lima and elsewhere on the coast,
where it is called Pajaro bobo. Less abundant than those two
trees are Buddleia americana, a pretty Cassia, two species of
Baccharis, two rampant Mimosz (one of them JZ asperata),
Muntingia Calaburu, and Cestrum hediondinum (called Yerba
Santa), of which only the two last grow to be trees of moderate
size, the rest being weak bushes or shrubs. Over trees and
. bushes climb a half-shrubby Asclepiadea (Sarcostemma sp.), with
very milky stems and umbels of pretty white flowers, a Cissus,
a Passiflora, allied to P. fetzda, a pretty delicate gourd plant, and
a Mikania.
It is usually only on the vega that we find any herbaceous
vegetation, except in the rainy years. ‘There the Cafia brava,
a Gynerium, with a stem 15 feet high and leafy all the way up,
and with smaller and less silky panicles than the other species,
grows in large patches. The huts of the Indians and Mestizos °
in the suburbs of Piura have often nothing more than a single
row of Cana brava stems stuck into the ground for walls, and
others laid horizontally over them for roof, affording, of course,
little protection from sun and wind, and none at all from the
North Peru and the customs of their inhabitants, but it might leave a false
impression were I not to add that all the better class of houses are as solidly
constructed as almost anywhere in South America. At Piura they have thick
walls of adobes, and are built round patios or courts, over which awnings are
stretched in the heat of the day. Glass windows, verandas, and balconies
are almost universal.
340 NOTES OF A BOTANIsS® CHAP.
few other perennial grasses, chiefly species of Panicum and
Paspalum, besides the Grama dulce (Cyzodon dactylon), originally
brought from Europe, but here so completely naturalised that, if
allowed to spread, it would exclude almost every other plant. It
is valuable as an article of fodder. A few annual grasses, chiefly
species of Eragrostis, grow about the outer margin of the vega.
Of sedges also (species of Cyperus and Scirpus) there are four
or five species.
Other herbaceous or suffruticose plants are a tall Polygonum,
the handsome Zypha Truxillensis, the Yerba blanca ( Zelecanthera
peruviana), several species of Chenopodium, including the strong-
smelling Paico (Ch. ambrosioides and multifidum); a Cleome, a
Portulaca, Scofaria dulcis, a Stemodium, and three or four other
Scrophulariaceze ; a Melilotus, a Crotalaria, a pretty Indigofera,
with numerous prostrate stems spreading every way from the
root, and pink flowers, a Desmodium, a sensitive -leaved
Desmanthus, a Sonchus, Ambrosia peruviana, and a few other
Compositz; a Datura, two species of Physalis, Dectyocalyx Miersii,
Hook. f (exceedingly variable in the size and shape of its leaves),
and the ubiquitous Solanum nigrum; Verbena Uttoralis, two
species of Lippia, Zzaridium indicum, a Heliophytum, three
Euphorbiz, a small Lythracea allied to Cuphea, and a few
others.
In the river itself occasionally grows a Naias, in dense
masses, like those of Avacharis alsinastrum in English streams
and ponds. . .
Two mosses, both species of Bryum, are occasionally found
on the banks of the river Chira, and on the filtering-stones kept
in houses, but only in a barren state.
I did not remain long enough in the country to witness the
full effect of the rains of 1864 on the desert. The first plant to
spring up, in the ravines leading down from the tablazo to the
valley, and then on the tablazo itself, were two delicate Euphorbie,
distinct from those of the vega. A little later on they were fol-
lowed by a fragile dichotomously branched Scrophulariacea (which
is common on the coast to northward of Guayaquil); two viscid
Nyctagineze (species of Oxybaphus) with pretty purple flowers ; and
two or three grasses (one of them an Aristida), but very sparingly.
The Yuca de caballo (Martynize sp.) also began to put forth its
leaves, but the Yuca del monte had not, up to the 2oth of April,
shown itself above ground. I had seen far more wonderful
effects of the rains of 1862 at Chanduy, where a desert nearly
as bare as that of Piura became clad in a month’s time with a
beautiful carpet of grasses, of many different species, over which
were scattered abundance of gay flowering plants. Something
similar must have occurred this year to northward of the hilis of
Mancora, for people who travelled between Amotape and ‘Tumbez
fen OM pee PACIFIC COAST 341
in the middle of April reported the whole country clad with
verdure, and the grass in the hollows up to the horses’ girths.
[The following extract from a letter to Mr.
Bentham, written a few weeks before finally leaving
South America, explains the reasons for his return
home, and concludes his correspondence while
abroad :—|
Lo Mr. George Bentham
AMOTAPE, NEAR PAYTA, PERU,
APTI a hood,
During the last twelve months I have experienced
some relief from my pains, and life has not been
so barely tolerable a burthen as during the three
preceding years; but I see plainly I can never hope
to regain my former activity, or indeed be able
to undertake any occupation whatever, and | have
made up my mind to return to England, my present
intention being toembark at Payta for Southampton
on the ist of May. .. .
[The following extract from a letter to Mr.
Daniel Hanbury, written from Hurstpierpoint two
years after his return to England, gives a curious
piece of information as to his friend the late Dr.
Jameson of Quito, which is to some extent a vindi-
cation of that botanist’s character and abilities.
Referring to Dr. Jameson’s flora of Ecuador,
which Spruce says is extremely imperfect, and
mostly a translation from other works, with no
original descriptions of plants, and whole genera
altogether unnoticed, he has the following remarks
342 NOTES OF A. BOTANIS Tie
which may be of value as showing why a man with
(apparently) such fine opportunities, and who was
so interested in botany, yet did so little :—|
Jameson told me he had been to Bajfios only
once in his life, although he has been over forty
years in Ecuador. He would have liked to go
again to gather some of the Orchids I found on
Tunguragua, but could not spare either the time
or the money. Suppose he were to write to ask you
just to step over to the Shetland Islands and get him
a form of Stereocaulon paschale which grows there—
you could do it more easily than he could go to
Banos and back. Yet Jameson is one of the most
amiable of men, an ardent collector (for other
people—much the same as | have been), and a very
fair botanist and mineralogist. But what can a
poor fellow do who has had a drunken (and worse)
wife hanging on him for forty years, who burns his
dried plants, whenever she can get hold of them,
so that. he can keep no herbarium, and who has
often had to struggle with absolute want ?
[This is the Dr. Jameson after whom was
named the beautiful greenhouse shrub Stveptosolen
famesoniz, as well as many other plants.
The remainder of this volume consists of extracts
from letters to Mr. Hanbury, having special reference
to matters connected with his residence in the
Andes ; together with six essays on various subjects
relating to his travels, which have either been
hitherto unpublished or are almost unknown to
English readers. ‘They have been condensed where
necessary, but are otherwise as Spruce left them. |
Ci ie Ro xxl
ROE CLS OF AMAZONIAN VEGETATION AND ANIMAL
MIGRATIONS
(ENGLAND, 1864-1873)
[On reaching England in May 1864, Spruce
remained for some time in London, at Kew and
at Hurstpierpoint, with short visits to Mr. Daniel
Franbiry and to myself. fle thus had frequent
opportunities of seeing most of his botanical friends,
and his further correspondence with them was of
little general interest. There is an exception, how-
ever, in the case of Mr. Hanbury, with whom he
at once established an intimacy which quickly
ripened into a close friendship; and as this gentle-
man thenceforth acted as Spruce’s informal agent
in London, supplying him with medicines, books,
and any special delicacies he required (always on
a strict business footing), while Spruce was always
ready to give botanical or other information on Mr.
Hanbury’s special pharmaceutical researches, letters
passed between them weekly, and often daily, for
many years, amounting in all to nearly a thousand,
all of which were carefully preserved and were
Peecemted by Sir Phomas Hanbury (after his
brother's death in 1875) to the Pharmaceutical
eoctety. hese were kindly lent me, and a few
343
344 NOTES: OF A BOTANITSa CHAP.
of them are so interesting, and have such a close
relation to his work in South America, that I give
here some extracts from them, adding a few ex-
planatory words where necessary.
The first is from one written about six months
after his return home, and is characteristic of his
intense love of nature. ]
KEw, Dec. 20, 1864.
I am thankful we are so near the shortest day.
It is an awful sight to me to see that the sun at
noon barely rises as high as the weathercock on
Kew Church steeple (seen from the opposite side
of the green)—and the poor skeletons of trees!
I have not seen trees without leaves for more than
fifteen years.
[This was specially interesting to myself because,
on my return from the Amazon in October 1852,
I was at once struck by two things—the general
smallness of the trees, and even more by the low
sun at noon, and especially by the fact of its giving
hardly any heat, so that it seemed most surprising
how any vegetation could continue to grow and
thrive under such harsh conditions.
Although Spruce had made Ambato his head-
quarters for nearly three years, I have found in none
of his letters any reference to what accommodation he
had there or to the people he lived with, except the
one remark (in a letter_to his friend Teasdale) that
his landlord there was ‘‘one of the best men in
the place.” But as he was often away collecting
at Banos, Quito, Riobamba, and other places, as
well as in the forests around Tunguragua and the
XXIII AMAZONIAN VEGETATION 345
Cinchona forest to the west of Chimborazo, for
days, weeks, or even months at a time, and never
makes any mention, on his return, of any injury by
damp, insects, etc., to his plants or his books, he
was evidently sharing a house with some family
(or renting an adjoining house), where he himself
and all his belongings were carefully attended to.
This mystery is now cleared up by a series of letters
to Mr. Daniel Hanbury, enclosing translations of
letters he had received from his old landlord in
Ambato, Manuel Santander, to whom Spruce
promises to write (at Mr. Hanbury’s request), with
a commission to obtain, if possible, dried specimens
of the flowers, fruit, and foliage of the ‘‘ Quito
Cinnamon.” The result of Santander’s repeated
attempts for over two years was a small quantity
of branches with leaves only, which are now pre-
served in the Herbarium of the Pharmaceutical
Society.
Om meuiry, |= have learnt that no authentic
specimens exist at Kew, and, presumably, there are
none in any other European herbaria, so that the
tree producing this cinnamon-like bark is still
botanically unknown.
Santander’s letters show the great and genuine
affection which Spruce had inspired in this excellent
man and his whole family. |
SPRUCES ACCOUNT OF SANTANDER
(Letter to Mr. Daniel Hanbury, Feb. 1, 1866)
Santander is a remarkable man. In_ youth
he was a soldier, and rose to be a captain. He
346 NOTES. OF A BOTANIS CHAP.
was in many battles, and during a “revolution” at
Guayaquil he was wounded by two musket-balls
in the hip and thigh (which stil give him periods
of torture), was made prisoner, and banished to
the coast of Peru without a-cent. At) Payta me
set up a school which gave him a bare living.
While a soldier he had taught himself to repair
the lock of a gun, and at Payta he began to teach
himself all kinds of light work in metals, in which,
being an ingenious fellow, he succeeded admirably,
so that when some years later new revolutions
recalled him to Ecuador, he opened at Ambato a
flourishing business—what we should call that of
a whitesmith—employing Indian smiths to do the
heavier work. He resisted the most urgent solicita-
tions of the Government to take a new and higher
commission in the army, and resolved to maintain
himself by the work of his hands and brain. Add
to all this, that he is a man (like yourself) over-
flowing with the milk of human kindness, and you
will comprehend how I came to regard him with
great affection, and regretted much having to part
from him.
Santander’s lameness prevents his travelling
much, but he knows the Cinnamon gatherers and
sometimes trades with them. I will give him full
instructions as to what we want. ... If any one
can get the Canelo—without going to the spot
where it grows, which is a good month’s journey
out and in from Ambato—I believe it is Santander.
[A year later he has a reply from Santander, a
translation of which he sends to Mr. Hanbury. |
XXIII AMAZONIAN VEGETATION 347
TRANSLATION OF SANTANDER’S LETTER
To Ricardo Spruce
AMBATO, /une 30, 1867.
fiite letter -bepins: “My -never forgotten
friend,” and after two pages giving a full descrip-
tion of the box of specimens (also asked for) he
has sent to Mr. Hanbury, and his prospects of
getting the much-desired Canelo, he continues
thus :]
I now pass on to my own affairs and those of
my family. I wrote to Inez (his eldest daughter)
with your salutations, and she replies saluting you
most affectionately. She says that her first little
boy already bears the name of Juan Elias, and
fags she reserves. the name of Ricardo for her
second. Her husband and her father-in-law (Don
Rafael Paz y Mino), who both know you, salute
you with many caresses. . .. As respects my
family, we are all here at your orders, truly desiring
to see you and embrace you, for even yet tears
accompany the memory of our absent friend.
Isabelito and Pachito (his younger children) are in
despair to see you and embrace you, and say:
“Oh that London was no farther off than Ambato
to Lligna, that we might go to Sefior Ricardo!”
But as an immense distance separates us, there is
no alternative but to console ourselves with your
letters. Isabel (his wife) is ready to complain that
she ever knew you, because she could not then
have felt your loss; but consoles herself with the
hope that one day you will return to Ambato, stout,
healthy, and rich. This is what we all desire, and
348 NOTES OF A GORANIS® CHAP.
that, leading with us a simple and peaceful life, we
may end our days together.
With this I await your reply, desiring that it
may find you well. Your truest heart-friend sighs
to see and to embrace you.
MANUEL SANTANDER.
A ddition.—lf convenient to you, and you con-
sider that Pachito might be useful to you, and you
will tell me how he may get there, I will give him
to you, Senor Ricardo, that he may serve you as a
companion and assist you in something.
(So endeth the epistle according to Santander. )
Ree
[ Nearly two years later, in a letter to Mr. Daniel
Hanbury from Welburn (dated December 31, 1868),
we have the conclusion of the long story of the
repeated efforts to get flowers and fruits of the
much-desired Canelo or Cinnamon tree of Quito.
This tree and its spicy bark were known to the
Spanish conquerors of Peru and Ecuador, and
has been an article of commerce ever since; the
great forest of Canelos was so named after it;
many travellers and botanists have traversed this
forest, including the enthusiastic Richard Spruce,
yet no one had yet been able to obtain or even to
see its flowers or fruit. Some of the causes of this
failure are indicated in a letter from Santander,
dated ‘‘ Ambato, November 12, 1868.” He therein
describes the extraordinary series of accidents and
misfortunes which made all his efforts of no avail ;
and as it also serves to illustrate further the
6 AMAZONTAN VEGETATION — - 240
character of the very interesting writer, and also
that of Spruce himself, who could excite such
enthusiastic affection (though this will surprise none
who knew him intimately), I will here give the
more interesting portions of it. |
Senor Santander to Seftior Don Ricardo Spruce
My MUCH-THOUGHT-OF AND NEVER-FORGOTTEN
Frienp—The receipt of your much-desired and con-
solatory letter has filled me and my family with joy,
especially on seeing the portrait that accompanied it.
But what a notable difference it presents from that
you sent us in 1864, which showed you much the same
as we had known you, whereas this last shows you
with a beard as white as the snow of Chimborazo,
and a stoutness that (for you) is extreme. What
changes time makes in the features—one would
think from this portrait you were seventy years
old!
[Then follows an account of his own domestic
troubles: the death of his eldest son, the dangerous
illness of his wife, and the loss of a fine mastiff,
“our old and faithful friend and the guardian of
our house!” He then continues :]
Notwithstanding these calamities, I did all |
could to procure the specimens of Cinnamon for Mr.
Hanbury, but I have found it impossible.
In the first place, I availed myself of Padre
Fierro, our friend, and in effect he sent the desired
specimens by Pacho Gallegos and José Torres.
But see what happened. ‘The Padre’s nephew ran
away from Canelos and carried off all his uncle’s
elothes, some ounces. of gold, a gun, etc. He
350 NOTES OF A BOTANIST ame
reached Bafos along with the two men, and as the
branches, etc., of the Canelo were stowed in two
baskets of Ishpingo, he sold the Ishpingo (which
was then at 22 reals the pound) and threw away
the branches, which were of no value to him.
Nobody knows what has become of him; but
I was almost at my wits’ end.
The second time I made a treaty with Pédio
Andicho, the Governor of Pindo (a few Indian
huts in the middle of the Forest of Canelos), who
was going there to make lance-shafts for the war
that menaced us at that epoch, and I gave him
three frascos (large square bottles) prepared accord-
ing to your directions. [| paid him in advance
four dollars, and made him several presents—a gun
-among the rest—that he might deliver the frascos
filled with specimens to Padre Fierro. He had
scarcely reached Pindo when he died, and though
I have again and again solicited Padre Fierro to
recover the frascos, he has found it impossible.
I wrote to him also asking him to send me the
branchlets in paper (as you used to prepare them),
which indeed he took the trouble to do, and sent
them by some Indians who were going to Bajos,
but who threw them into the river, so that they
never reached me. How unfortunate I have been !
On the 8th of December last year I gave four
dollars to Pedro Valladares, with a written agree-
ment that he should obtain for me the desired
objects. He goes to Canelos, starts on the return
_ journey, and is stopped by death, and 1 none of his
effects have been recovered !
After this I made a treaty with Manuel Mena.
for two dollars—as can be proved by my books—
and ever since I have neither seen nor heard tell
of him! | :
I have tried to treat with the traders who go
from Pelileo to Canelos, such as Hilario Flores
and others; but not one has been willing to under-
take to bring the Cinnamon fruits, etc., on account
of its exceeding difficulty.
By Padre Fierro, who himself has just come out
of the forest, I certainly hoped to obtain it, but he
has only brought two young living plants, which (as
they were beginning to wither) he has left behind
him (planted) at St Iné’s, on the farm of Dr. Lizar-
zaburo. He thought he was doing the best he
could for me in bringing the live plants. He
brought also seeds, but they got them from him
at ot. Ime's.
All that I have been able to obtain is some loose
leaves and calyces with their fruits, but not of their
original colour. Tell me, may I send Mr. Hanbury
these dried leaves? The young plants will prosper,
but the difficulty is how to send them.
As to getting the flowers, that is the most im-
possible of all, for Padre Fierro tells me that no
sooner does the young calyx appear than it already
contains the young fruit [here Spruce remarks—
“hence the tree appears to be dicecious”’], so that
the calyx with the fruit ought to suffice for the identi-
fication of the Cinnamon tree. I hope to give these
things to Mr. Seckel, who is on his way to Quito,
that he may send them to Mr. Hanbury.
How I wish this affair had depended on me
alone, and that I could have gone to Canelos; but
that is impossible because of the precipitous ways.
If I could have gone myself, even although I had
352 NOTES OF A BOTANIS# CHAP.
e)
perished, my death would have been praiseworthy,
and my friends could not have been dissatisfied
with me. Have the goodness to salute Mr. Han-
bury for me, and to explain to him all the obstacles
that have opposed the execution of his commission.
If he is not satisfied that I have done my best, I must
return him the 45—there is no other alternative.
What a pleasure it has been for me to learn
something of your actual position, and it has been
the same for my family, who charge me to embrace
you with a thousand tender caresses; for they say
the lapse of time only makes them remember you
and regret your absence the more. For me, what
shall I say? I preserve in my heart the image of
Seftor Ricardo, but this my joy is troubled by the
hopelessness of ever seeing him again. What
happiness it would be for us to have you at Ambato
just now, in the most agreeable season of the year.
The time of ripe pears and peaches is near; our
friend Mantilla, with his accustomed kindness, is
waiting for us to go and eat them. Miraflores is
now planted with poplars all along the avenue where
we used to walk. Tamatamas’* are ready for our
innocent games. Isobel is at the gate waiting for
you. Frank and I are ready to accompany our
dear friend. But—sweet dream—delusive hopes—
where is he?
Adieu, my beloved friend, adieu! Thus your
sincere friends bid you farewell !
MANUEL SANTANDER.
[In sending this translation to Mr. Hanbury,
Spruce writes: ‘You will read about the disasters
1 Sticky fruits with which children pelt each other,
that have attended the quest of the Quito Cinnamon.
I know nearly all: the people whose names are men-
tioned, and I have no doubt his relation is exact,
for I know well the simple and truthful character
Gitme man...
‘After all the time, etc., Santander has lost, I do
not think we can ask him any more.”
Thus ends the quest for botanical specimens of
one long-known tree whose scented bark is still an
object of commerce, but which grows only in a
limited district of the great forests at the foot of the
Andes of Ecuador.
The following interesting paper was sent to
fie itineam Society in 1867, and published in
tie society s Journal, vol. ix. (pp. 346-367), under
the following title: ‘‘Notes on some Insect and
other Migrations observed in Equatorial America.
py wiehard Spruce, Msq. Communicated by the
President.”
This title, however, does not convey an idea of
its whole subject, which is almost as much botanical
as zoological, the first portion of it containing an
admirable sketch of the broader aspects of the
vegetation of the Great Amazon Valley and adjacent
regions. I have therefore subdivided the paper
under separate headings, and have omitted a few
of the less interesting details. |
Tat BROADER CHARACTERISTICS OF AMAZONIAN
VEGETATION
In endeavouring to trace the distribution of
plants in the Amazon valley, and to connect it with
VOL. I a
354 NOTES OF A BOTANITSS CHAP,
that of animals, I have been struck with the fact
that there are certain grand features of the vegeta-
tion which prevail throughout Cisandine America,
within the tropics, and even beyond the southern
tropic—features independent of the actual distribu-
tion of the running waters, partly also of the geo-
logical constitution, and even of the climate—to
which the range of the larger species of Mammals
and Birds corresponds in a considerable degree, but
net that of any other class or tribe of animals, and
especially not of lepidopterous Insects. ‘These
features depend on the prevalence of certain groups,
or even of single species, of plants over vast areas:
one set prevailing in the Virgin or Great Forests
(Caa-guacui of the Brazilians, Monte Alto of the
Venezuelans) which clothe the fertile lands beyond
the reach of inundations, and constitute the great
mass of the vegetation; another in the Low or
White Forests (Caa-tinga, Monte Bajo)—those
curious remnants of a still more ancient and
humbler but surpassingly interesting vegetation,
which (especially on the Rio Negro and Casiquiari)
are being gradually hemmed in and supplanted by
the sturdier growth of the Great Forests, wherein
they are interspersed like flower-beds in a shrub-
bery ; another in the Riparial Forests (Ygapu or
Gapo of the Brazilians, Rebalsa of the Spaniards),
on lowlands bordering the rivers, and laid under
water for several months in the year, where the
trees when young, and the bushes throughout their
existence, must have the curious property of being
able to survive complete and prolonged submersion,
constituting for them a species of hybernation; a
fourth in the Recent Forests (Caa-puéra, Rastrojo),
XXIII PVENZONTAN VEGETATION 355
which spring up to replace the Primitive Forests
destroyed by man, and, notwithstanding their
weedy character, consist chiefly of shrubs and trees ;
a fifth in the savannas or campos— grassy or
scrubby knolls, or glades, or hollows (dried-up
lakes), which bear a very small proportion indeed
to the vast extent of woodland in the Amazon
valley proper, but towards its northern and southern
borders compete with the woods for the possession
of the ground, and in the centre of Venezuela enlarge
to interminable grassy llanos or plains.
From an elevated site that should embrace the
landscape on all sides to the extreme limit of vision,
as, for instance, from the heights at the confluence
of the Rio Negro and Amazon, or, better still, from
one of the steep granite rocks that overlook the
noble forests of the Casiquiari, a practised eye would
distinguish the various kinds of forest by their
aspect alone. The Virgin Forests are distinct
enough by the sombre foliage of the densely-packed,
lofty trees, out of which stand, like the cupolas,
spires, and turrets of a large city, the dome-shaped
or pyramidal or flat-topped crowns of still loftier
trees, overtopping even the tallest palms, both palms
and trees being more or less interwoven with stout,
gaily-flowering lianas; the White Forests by the
low, neat-growing, and thinly-set trees and bushes,
with scarcely any lianas—the Palms few, but
peculiar, and often odd-looking—on a near view
by the greater abundance of Ferns, especially on
the trees, and sometimes of terrestrial Aroids and
Cyclanths ; the Recent Forests by their low, irregular,
tangled growth, paler foliage, and general weedy
aspect ; the Riparial Forests, even where the water
356 NOTES OF A {BO Pan toe CHAP.
is not visible, by the varied tints of the foliage, and
by the trees rarely equalling those of the Virgin
Forest in height—sometimes, indeed, beginning on
the water's edge as low bushes, thence gradually
erowing higher as they advance inland, until at the
limit of inundations they mingle with the primeval
woods, and are almost equally lofty—by the greater
proportion of herbaceous lianas which drape the
trees and often form a curtain-like frontage—and
by the abundance of Palms, whereof the taller kinds
usually surpass the exogenous trees in height, and
(the Fan palms especially) often stretch in long
avenue-like lines along, or parallel to, the shore.
On some black-water rivers, such as the Pacimoni,
the Atabapo, and the Rio Negro in some parts of
its course, the breadth of inundated land is entirely
clad with bushes and small trees of very equable
height, on the skirts of which the Virgin Forest
rises abruptly to a height more than twice as great.
This is called by the natives “‘ caatinga-gapo. ”
Besides these differences of aspect, the natives
will tell you there are other more intrinsic ones ; for
instance, that the riparial trees have softer and more
perishable timber, as well as inferior fruits; while
the caatingas, with a far greater show of blossom,
have hardly any edible fruit at all, and very few
indeed of the trees rise to the magnitude of timber
trees. And yet, when the constituent plants of the
different classes of forest come to be compared to-
gether, they are found to correspond to a degree
quite unexpected; for, although the species are
almost entirely diverse, the differences are rarely
more than specific. It is only in the caatingas that
a few genera, each including several species, seem
Se AMAZONIAN VEGETATION 357
to have taken up their exclusive abode: such are
Commianthus among Rubiacee, Pagamea among
Loganiaceze, Myrmidone and Majeta among Melas-
tomacez ; and there are a few other peculiar genera,
chiefly monotypic. But, of the riparial plants,
Mearly every species-has its congener on terra
firme, to which it stands so near that, although
fie two must of right bear different names, the
differences of structure are precisely such as might
have been brought about by long exposure even
to the existing state of things, without supposing
them to date from widely different conditions in
the remote past; and this is especially true of such
genera as Inga, Pithecolobium, Lecythis, and of
many Myrtles and Melastomes, Sapotads, etc.
As an illustration of the features which tend to
impress a certain character of uniformity on the
vegetation of the Amazon region, I will take the
case of a single tree, Lertholletia excelsa (H. and B.)
—perhaps the noblest tree of the Amazon region,
and the most characteristic of its Virgin Forests—
and briefly sketch its distribution. In aspect and
foliage it is not unlike a gigantic Chestnut tree ;
amc tiie seeds (the Para nut of commerce), if not
much like chestnuts in their trigonous bony shell,
are not very different in taste, whence the Brazilian
name of the tree, ‘‘Castanheira,’ and of the seeds
‘“castanhas.” This tree is found almost throughout
the Amazon valley, both to north and south, chiefly
wherever there is a great depth of that red loam
which it pleases M. Agassiz to call ‘glacial drift.”
About Para itself there is no lack of it, especially
in the fine woods of Tauat; and 1200 miles farther
to the west it may be seen in some abundance on
358 NOTES OF A BOTANITS® CHAP.
the very banks of the Amazon, between Coary and
Ega, at a part called Mutuincoara (Curassow’s Nest),
where steep red earth-cliffs border the river and
forest; while it extends many hundred miles up
the Purtis and other southern affluents. North of
the main river I have seen it at many points—for
instance, in the forests of the Trombetas and at the
falls of the Aripecurti; in various places along the
Rio Negro, where one village (Castanheiro) takes
its name from it; and on the Casiquiari and Upper
Orinoco, where it was first seen and described by
Humboldt and Bonpland.
A magnificent palm, Waazmilana regia (Mart.)
—Inaja of the Amazon, Cocurito of the Orinoco—
frequently accompanies the Bertholletia, and is still
more widely and generally dispersed. I have seen
it as far to the south as in 7° lat. ;sand ames ae
lat., at the cataracts of the Orinoco, ateis#sillgas
abundant as on the Amazon. It even climbs high
on the granite hills. On one which I ascended
near the falls of the Rio Negro, an Inaja palm
occupied the very apex, at 1500 feet above the
river; and with the telescope I have distinctly
recognised this Palm at a much greater elevation
on Duida and other mountains. Both the tree and
the Palm range to northward and southward beyond
the limits of my own explorations; and there are
a few other arborescent plants which stretch all
through South America, from the base of the coast-
range of Caracas (or even in a few cases from the
West India Islands) to the region of the river
Plate; but these are chiefly trees such as sprinkle
the savannas, or are gathered into groves, along
both the northern and southern borders of the
SLT AMAZONIAN VEGETATION 359
great Amazonian forest-belt, wherein they now
barely exist on the bits of campos that at wide
intervals break the monotony of the woodland—
although they probably at some antecedent period
ranged continuously from north to south.
In other cases, closely allied species occupy
distinct areas. One of the finest fruits of Equatorial
America, the Cocura (Pourouma of Aublet), is borne
in large grape-like bunches on trees of the Bread-
fruit tribe, having large, palmatifid, hoary leaves,
quite like those of their near allies the Cecropias.
Now the Cocura of the mid-region of the Rio
Negro, of the Japura, and of the Upper Amazon
or Solimoés is ove species (Pourouma cecropiefolra,
Mart.), while that of the mouth of the Rio Negro
and adjacent parts of the Amazon is a very distinct
and smaller-fruited species (P. vetwsa, Spruce), and
that of the Uaupés is a third species (P. apzculata,
Spruce), all three being so plainly diverse that the
Indians distinguish them by adjective names,
although that diversity or divergence, as in a great
many parallel instances, is but a measure of the time
that has elapsed since their derivation from a single
stirp.
But the most general cause of resemblance lies
in this fact, that there are many orders and families
of plants whereof many of the species are confined
to limited areas, and yet, throughout the Amazon
valley, each order, or family, will be everywhere
represented by about the same number of indi-
viduals and species, having to each other nearly
the same correlation, as regards aspect and sensible
properties, provided always that the conditions of
growth (as above defined) be the same; so that
360 NOTES OF.A BOTANIS® CHAP.
a plant which serves as food for any particular
animal or tribe of animals in a given locality is
pretty certain to have its congener (or at least its
co-ordinate) in any other locality of the same
region. yas
The riparial plants of the Amazon (such, namely,
as grow between ebb- and flood-mark, or within the
limits to which the annual inundations extend)
range in many instances from the very mouth of
the river up to the roots of the Andes ;;amd inde
not yet know of a single tree which is not found
both on the northern or Guayana shore and on the
southern or Brazilian.t The most notable example
of this extensive range is the Pao “Mulatte- or
Mulatto tree (Enkylista, Benth.), a tall, elegant
tree allied to the Cinchonas, and conspicuous from
its deciduous brown bark, which grows everywhere
on lands flooded by the Amazon, and, from its
accessibility and the readiness with which its wood
burns while green, supplies a great part of the fuel
consumed by the steamers that navigate the Amazon.
It is almost equally common on some of the white-
water tributaries; I have seen it, for instance, far
away up the Huallaga to the south, and up the
Pastasa to the north. Two of the commonest
river-side Ingas of the Amazon (J. splendens, W..,
and /. corymbtfera, Benth.) reappear together on
the Upper Casiquiari and Orinoco; and similar
instances might be multiplied indefinitely.
Streams of black or clear water have also their
proper riparial vegetation, some species being
1 Hence I suspect that those insects of the south side of the Amazon which
have been identified with Guayana species belong chiefly to the riparial
forests.
XXII AMAZONIAN VEGETATION 361
apparently repeated on all of them. For example,
many of the trees of the inundated margins of the
Tapajoz (some of them undescribed when I first
gathered them) I found afterwards on the Rio
Negro up to its very sources—although none of
them inhabit the shores of the Amazon, either
between the mouths of those two affluents or else-
where. A few recur on the Teffé and other black-
water streams entering still farther to the west,
and even on similar affluents of the Orinoco.
Here, at least, would seem to be a case of the
vegetation depending on the distribution of the
running waters; but in reality both the kind of
water and the vegetation nourished by it depend
entirely on the nature of the soil, those rivers which
run chiefly through soft alluvial bottoms being
-turbid, while those that have a hard rocky bed run
clear ; and the two classes of rivers are repeated over
and over throughout the length and breadth of the
Amazon region. Into the black Rio Negro runs
that whitest of rivers, the Rio Branco, and imparts
fo tie veretation of the former, for a littles way
below their confluence, quite an Amazonian char-
acter.. The two largest tributaries of the Casi-
quiari, namely, the Pacimoni and the Siapa, run
nearly parallel through a longish course, and at
rarely more than 15 miles apart; yet the former has
clear dark water and the latter is excessively muddy.
Moreover, when 1 explored the Pacimoni to its
very sources, I found it divide at last into two
nearly equal rivulets, whereof the one had white
and the other black water. The true riparial vege-
1 Here, for instance, is the only locality throughout the Rio Negro for
hombax Munguba, a fine Silk-Cotton tree abounding on the Amazon.
362 NOTES OF A BOT aNiai CHAP.
tation in all these and in hundreds of other cases
is invariably modified after the same fashion by the
colour of the waters. How it became what it is,
and how it came there at all, are questions not to
be discussed here.
After what has been said, it is scarcely necessary
to add that many species of plants which grow down
to the very coast in Guayana exist also in the
Peruvian province of Maynas—that is, at the eastern
foot of the Andes, and even up to a height of a few
thousand feet in those mountains—e.g. Humboldt’s
Willow (Salix humboldtiana, W.) and the Cannon-
ball tree (Couroupila gutranensis, Aubl.), called
Aia-uma or Dead Man’s Head in Maynas; while
the proportion of Orinoco plants repeated on the
Amazon is much greater than that of the plants of
South Brazil. Nor does this uniformity of char-
acter, and the constant recurrence of certain species,
preclude the possibility of the flora being wonder-
fully rich; for I have calculated that by moving
away a degree of either latitude or longitude I
found about half the species different ; while in the
numerous caatingas I have explored I always found
a few species in each that I never saw again, even
in other caatingas.
THE RELATIONS OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS
The importance of inquiries of this class is
obvious, even from a zoological point of view; for
that an animal should flourish in any region it must
there find suitable food; and there is perhaps no
part of the world where so large a proportion of the
animals is so directly vegetarian in its diet. I have
[2 AMAZONIAN VEGETATION 363
reason to believe that there is no carnivorous animal
on the Amazon and Orinoco which does not occasion-
ally resort to vegetables, and especially to fruits, for
food—not always of necessity, but often from choice.
When, however, we come to consider and compare
the distribution of the various classes and_ sub-
ordinate groups of animals, we see that the range
of a fruit-eating species or tribe can rarely corre-
spond to that of one which feeds on leaves, and
similarly of other pairs of differences or contrasts in
the nature of the food—that, in short, the only
animals which can be expected to range from sea to
sea in a wide continent are a few general feeders
and their parasites, the larger beasts of prey, and
the scavengers, such as Vultures among birds (and
perhaps Termites among insects).
As to the distribution of the Lepidoptera in the
Amazon valley, it is plain that it can rarely corre-
spond to the grander features of the vegetation, for
the simple reason that the food of caterpillars is
scarcely ever the foliage, etc., of the loftier forest
trees, but chiefly of soft-leaved undershrubs and low
trees (1) which grow under the shade of the forest
and have, many of them, a restricted range; or (2)
which spring up where the primeval woods have
been destroyed, and in waste places near the habita-
tions of men, and whose range in many cases is co-
extensive at least with Cisandine Tropical America.
The bushy trees and the luxuriant herbs which
border savannas and caatingas and broad forest
paths, and sometimes those which grow on the very
edge of streams, are also apt to be infested by cater-
pillars. Of about two thousand forest trees I have
had cut down in the Amazon region for the sake of
364 NOTES OF A BOTANIS# CHAP.
their flowers and fruits, very few indeed have been
infested by caterpillars. A tall: Leguminous (tree or
liana) or Bombaceous species would sometimes have
caterpillars on it; more rarely a Laurel or a Nut-
meg; but a Fig or a Guttifer never. A vast number
of trees and lianas of all sizes are, indeed, excluded
from serving as food to caterpillars by their strongly
resinous or else acrid and poisonous juices, and
many more on account of their hard, leathery leaves,
which are untouched except, rarely, by minute
caterpillars that eat themselves galleries in the
parenchyma.
Of plants which afford food for caterpillars,
Leguminose hold decidedly the first place; next to
these rank Mallow-like plants (including Malvacez
proper, Sterculiacez, Biittneriacee, and -Viliaeeze)
then Melastomacez and Solanacez. “Caterpillars
armed with stinging hairs seem peculiarly partial to
Leguminose, as I know to my cost, the bushy Inga
trees in some parts being scarcely approachable
when with flowers and young leaves. In the neigh-
bourhood of Guayaquil children that stray under the
Tamarind trees sometimes get severely stung by the
hairy caterpillars that drop on them from the trees.
Other orders of plants on which I have en-
countered caterpillars are chiefly the following :—
Among Endogens: Grasses, Sedges, Palms, and
Aroids—on all rather rarely; on Scitaminez and
Musacez more frequently. Among 2xocems:
Euphorbiacez (principally on those with aromatic
foliage); Samydez; Bixaceze; Vochysiacez ; Sapin-
daceze (few); Malpighiaceee; Anonaceez and Myris-
ticeze (rarely); Anacardiaceze ; Ochnacez (on very
young leaves only, the adult foliage being hard and
ake
XXIII AMAZONIAN VEGETATION 215
re)
vitreous); Podostemee; Polygonee; Amarantacee ;
Piperacez ; Lauracez (few); Chrysobalanez (often
much infested); Combretaceze; Myrtacez (rarely
on true Myrtles, but a great pest to the large hand-
some flowers of the sub-orders Barringtoniez and
Lecythidez); Passiflorece; Cucurbitacez ; Rubiacez
(few out of the vast number of Amazon species) ;
Composite (all weeds); Boraginee ; Verbenacez ;
Bignoniacez. Besides these, there are other orders
which contain a few species with mild juices, and
leaves (and even wood) not too tough for a cater- |
pillar’s jaws, which are doubtless chosen by certain
species of butterflies as food for their progeny; and
nearly all the very large flowers are apt- to be
plagued by caterpillars, as well as by the grubs of
flies and beetles.!
Some caterpillars seem to have a decided taste
for bitters; and narcotics are rarely objected to;
indeed, I should say that most insects are decidedly
partial to them, while bees and wasps seem to have
a positive pleasure in getting drunk. The very few
phyllophagous beetles whose habits have come
under my notice feed on narcotic plants. At the
falls of the Rio Negro, just south of the Equator, a
common weed in the village of Sad Gabriel is
Solanum jamaticense, Sw., growing (when not dis-
turbed) to the size of a currant-bush, and bearing
large, angular, soft, woolly leaves. In February 1852
there appeared swarms of a large black beetle whose
corpulent abdomen was barely half-covered by the
elytra (whence I suppose it an ally of our Meloés),
1 The above list has no further value than that of indicating, so far as my
notes and recollections serve me, the kinds of plants which I have seen most
maltreated by caterpillars in the Amazon region.
366 NOTES OF A BOTANESS: CHAP.
and whose sole food was this Solanum. Their
feeding-times were the dusk of evening and morn-
ing, when they would arise, as it were, out of the
earth, hover over the plants like a swarm of bees,
and then settle down in such numbers that the
plants were black with them.
For myself, [| am free to confess that ae:
generally looked on the insect world as enemies to
be avoided or destroyed. Mosquitoes and _ ticks
sucked my blood; cockroaches ate and defiled my
provisions; caterpillars mutilated the plants when
srowing; and ants made their nests among the
dried specimens and saturated them with formic
acid, or even cut them up and carried them away
bodily. I recollect my horror at coming home and
finding my house invaded by an army of Arriero
or Satiba ants who had fallen on a pile of dried
specimens and were cutting them up most scientific-
ally into circular disks whose radius was just equal
to the artist's own longest diameter. The few notes
on insects scattered through my journals relate,
indeed, chiefly to ants, who deserve to be considered
the actual owners of the Amazon valley far more
than either the red or the white man. In fine, when
I venture to offer these imperfect jottings to the
notice of zoologists, I feel that I can at best be coen-
sidered only an interloper in a province not my own.
SomE CASES OF INSECT MIGRATION
Having above indicated the kinds of plants
apparently most in request with the larve of the
Lepidoptera, I wish now to recall the attention of
—————
XXHII PON Nate WAG RATIONS B67
naturalists to certain transits or migrations of the
adult insects across the Amazon, such as_ have
already been noticed by Messrs. Edwards, Wallace,
and Bates, and perhaps by other travellers. The
first time I fell in with such a migration was in
November 1849, near the mouth of the Xingu,
when I was travelling up the Amazon from Para to
Santarem ; and it is thus sketched in my Journal :—
«|, . As we returned to the brig we saw a vast
multitude of Butterflies flying across the Amazon,
from the northern to the southern side, in a direction
about irom N.N.W. to 5.S.E. They were evidently
in the last stage of fatigue: some of them attained
the shore, but a large proportion fell exhausted into
the water, and we caught several in our hands as
they passed over the canoe. They were all of
common white and orange-yellow species, such as
are bred in cultivated and waste grounds, and having
found no matrix whereon to deposit their eggs
to the northward of the river (the leaves proper
for their purpose having probably been already
destroyed, or at least occupied, by caterpillars), were
going in quest of it elsewhere.”
The very little wind there was blew from between
E. and N.E.; therefore the dutterfiies steered their
course at right angles to rt; and this was the case in
subsequent flights I saw across the Amazon, although
when the wind was strong the weaker-winged insects
made considerable leeway, and would doubtless most
of them succumb before reaching land. But the
most notable circumstance is that ¢he movement 7s
always southward, like the human waves which from
the earliest times seem to have surged one after the
other over the whole length of America, generating
368 NOTES OF A, BOGS his CHAP.
after a time a reflux northwards, as in the case of the
empire of the Incas, 9
Since my return to England I have read Mr.
Bates’s graphic description of a flight of butterflies
across the Amazon below Obidos, lasting for two
days without intermission during daylight. These
also all crossed in one direction, from north to south.
Nearly all were species of Callidryas, the males of
which genus are wont to resort to beaches, while
the females hover on the borders of the forest and
deposit their eggs on low-growing, shade-loving
Mimose. He adds, ‘The migrating hordes, so far
as I could ascertain, are composed only of males.’ ?
It is possible, therefore, that in the flights witnessed
by myself the individuals were all males—in which
case the flights should probably be looked upon not
as migrations but dispersions, analogous to those of
male ants and bees when their occupation is done,
and they are doomed by the workers to banishment,
which means death. In the case I am about to
describe, however, the swarms certainly comprised
both sexes, although I know not in what proportion ;
and their movements were more evidently dependent
on the failure of their food.
In the year 1862 I spent some- menties at
Chanduy, a small village on the desert coast of the
Pacific northward of Guayaquil, where one or two
smart showers are usually all the rain that falls in a
year; but ¢Haf was an exceptional year, such as
there had not been for seventeen years before—with
heavy rains all through the month of March, which
brought out a vigorous herbaceous vegetation where
almost unbroken sterility had previously prevailed.
1 Naturalist on the Amazons, vol. 1. p. 249.
XXIII ANIMAL MIGRATIONS 369
In April swarms of butterflies and moths appeared,
coming from the east, sucking the sweets of the
newly-opened flowers, and depositing their eggs on
the leaves, especially of a Boerhaavia and of a
curious Amaranth (Frohlichia, sp. n.) not unlike our
common Ribgrass in external aspect—until cater-
pillars swarmed on every plant. New legions
continued to pour in from the east, and finding the
field already occupied, launched boldly out over the
Pacific Ocean, as Magellan had done before them,
there to find a fate not unlike that of the adven-
turous navigator.’ No better luck attended most of
the offspring of their predecessors, especially those
who fed on the Boerhaavia, which was much less
abundant than the Froéhlichia. The shoal of cater-
pillars advanced continually westward, eating up
whatever to them was eatable until, on nearing the
seashore and the limit of vegetation, I used to see
them writhing over the burning sand in convulsive
haste to reach the food and shelter of some Boer-
haavia which had haply escaped the jaws of preceding
emigrants ; but, failing this, thousands of them were
scorched to death, or fell a prey to the smaller sea-
side birds, to whom they were doubtless a rare
dainty.
The explanation of this continual westward move-
ment is not difficult. A few leagues inland, instead
of the sandy coast-desert with here and there a tree,
we find woods, not very dense or lofty, but where
there is sufficient moisture to keep alive a few
remnants of the above-mentioned herbs all the year
round, and doubtless also of the insects that feed
1 Here also the course attempted to be steered by the insects was across the
strong southerly breeze that was blowing.
VOL. Il Zeb
370 NOTES OF A -BOTANIsS#® CHAP.
upon them. There are also cattle-farms; and
around the wells from which water is drawn and
served to the cattle the same weeds are continually
springing up; while the seeds, even of those that
grew on the desert, remain embedded in the sand
and retain their vitality during all> the years or
drought. When the rains come on, therefore, they
cause, as it were, a unilateral development of the
vegetation from the forest across the open grounds,
and a corresponding expansion of the insect-life
which breeds and feeds upon it.
Results the same in principle, butediversesan
mode, would take place under different local circum-
stances, Thus, if we suppose an oasis in the midst
of a desert exposed to the same exceptional access
of moisture as the desert of Chanduy with its forest
skirt, there would be generated an extension of
organic life radiating outwards in all directions.
Besides the migrations above recorded, I have
many times in South America seen butterflies flying
across rivers so wide that it is impossible to suppose
they could be guided by any indication of sight or
smell. Animals of higher organisation and stronger
reasoning powers would probably turn aside along
the shore of the river or ocean in quest of food for
themselves and their offspring; but there are
plainly cases where frail little creatures, such as
butterflies, must go straight forward at a venture,
and either attain their object or perish.
MIGRATING ANTS
The movements of Ants registered in my journal
are (as may be supposed) chiefly such as were
SLIT ANIMAL MIGRATIONS Byat
hostile to myself, and they do not throw much
additional light on their habits. Ecitons or For-
aging Ants (called Cazadoras in Peru) seem to be
true wandering hordes, without a settled habita-
tion; for a certain number of them may always be
seen carrying pupe, apparently of their own species;
but they sojourn sometimes for several days when-
ever they come upon suitable food and lodging... . .
The first time I saw a house invaded by Caza-
doras was in November 1855, on the forest slope
of Mount Campana, in the Eastern Peruvian Andes.
I had taken up my abode in a solitary Indian hut,
at a height of 3000 feet, for the sake of devoting a
month to the exploration of that interesting moun-
fam lhe walls of the hut were merely a single
row of strips of Palm trees, with spaces between
them wide enough to admit larger animals than
ants. One morning soon after sunrise the hut was
suddenly filled with large blackish ants, which ran
nimbly about and tried their teeth on everything.
My charqui proved too tough for them; but they
made short work of a bunch of ripe plantains, and
rooted out cockroaches, spiders, and other suchlike
denizens of a forest hut. So long as they were left
unmolested, they avoided the human inhabitants ;
but when I attempted to brush them away they fell
on me by hundreds and bit and stung fiercely. |
asked the Indian’s wife if we had not better turn
out awhile and leave them to their diversions.
‘Do they annoy you?” said she. “Why, you see
it is impossible for one to work with the ants
running over everything,” replied I. Whereupon
she filled a calabash with cold water, and going to
the corner of the hut where the ants still continued
372 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
to stream in, she devoutly crossed herself, muttered
some invocation or exorcism, and sprinkled the
water gently over them. Then walking quietly
round and round the hut, she continued her asper-
sion on the marauders, and thereby literally so
damped their ardour that they began to beat a
retreat, and in ten minutes not an ant was to be
seen.
Some years afterwards I was residing in a farm-
house on the river Daule, near Guayaquil, when I
witnessed a similar invasion. The house was large,
of two stories, and built chiefly of bamboo-cane—
the walls being merely an outer and an inner layer
of cane, without plaster inside or out, so that they
harboured vast numbers of cockroaches, scorpions,
rats, mice, bats, and even snakes, although the
latter abode chiefly in the roof. Notwithstanding
the size of the house, every room was speedily filled
with the ants. The good lady hastened to fasten
up her.fresh- meat, fish, sugar, ete> an salespim-
accessible even to the ants; and I was prompt to
impart my experience of the efficacy of baptism by
water in ridding a house of such pests. ‘‘ Oh,”
said she laughingly, ‘‘we know all that; but let
them first have time to clear the house of vermin ;
for if even a rat or a snake be caught napping, they
will soon pick his bones.” They had been in the
house but a very little while when we heard a
great commotion inside the walls, chiefly of mice
careering madly about and uttering terrified squeals ;
and the ants were allowed to remain thus, and hunt
over the house at will, for three days and nights,
when, having exhausted their legitimate game, they
began to be troublesome in the kitchen and on the
XXII ANIMAL MIGRATIONS 298
dinner-table. ‘‘ Now,” said Dofia Juanita, “is the
time for the water cure”; and she set her maids to
sprinkle water over the visitors, who at once took
the hint, gathered up their scattered squadrons,
reformed in column, and resumed their march.
Whenever their inquisitions became troublesome
to myself during the three days, I took the liberty
to scatter a few suggestive drops among them, and
it always sufficed to make them turn aside; but any
attempt at a forcible ejectment they were sure to
resent with tooth and tail; and their bite and sting
were rather formidable, for they were large and
lusty ants. For weeks afterwards the squeaking of
a mouse and the whirring of a cockroach were
sounds unheard in that house.’
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS AND MAMMALS
The most remarkable migration that I have my-
self witnessed in South America is that of the great
Wood-Ibis (Zantalus loculator), called Jabiri in
Brazil, Gauadn in Venezuela, between the Amazon
and the Orinoco, a distance of from 300 to 500 miles
in a straight line, but a thousand or more following
tye course Of the rivers. The migrations are so
timed that the birds are always on the one river or
the other when the water is lowest and there is
most sandy beach exposed, affording the greatest
extent of fishing-ground. In the years 1853 and
' The ants called Carniceras or Butchers in Maynas are probably of a
tribe distinct from the Foragers ; for they are burrowing ants, and are said to
prefer the flesh of human carcasses to any other food. Padre Velasco, in his
Fitstory of Quzto, assures us that they will make a perfect skeleton of a corpse
the very day it is buried, and that they devour any disabled animal, however
large, they find in the forest.
374 NOTES OF FA BOTANIS CHAP.
1854, when I was at San Carlos del Rio Negro
(lat. 1° 534’ S.), I saw them going northward in
November and returning southward in May, and
had the pleasure of having some of them stay to
dine with me. One of their halting-places on their
way to the Orinoco was on islands near the mouth
of the Casiquiari, at only a few hours’ journey above
San Carlos. There I have seen them roosting on
the tree-tops in such long close lines, that by moon-
light the trees seemed clad with white flowers.
They descend to sandy spits of islands to fish in
the grey of the evening and morning, z.e. before
betaking themselves to their eyrie, and _ before
resuming their journey on the following day. The
scarcity of fish in rivers of clear or black water is
well known; and even were they more abundant,
this very clearness of the water would render it
difficult for fish-eating fowls to catch them, unless
when there was little light; hence, perhaps, the
Ibis’s choice of hours for fishing; and the turbid
water poured into the Rio Negro by the Casiquiari
dulls its transparency at that point, which makes it
eligible for a fishing-station, leaving probably only
a single day’s stage for the travellers to reach the
Orinoco. The Ibises, however, did not, as one
might have supposed, turn up the Casiquiari, but
held right on to the north, crossing the isthmus of
Pimichin, and descending the Atabapo to the
Orinoco. Some of them, I was told, would halt
on the Guaviare, whose turbid waters, alligators,
turtles, etc., quite assimilate it to the Solimoés or
Upper Amazon ; and others push on to the Apuré ;
the former lot, however, are said to travel chiefly
by way of the Japura from the Amazon. ‘Those
XXIII ANIMAL MIGRATIONS B75
that frequent the Upper Orinoco return in May ;
and their halting-place near San Carlos is not at
the mouth of the Casiquiari, but on islands a day’s
journey below the village, so that they are at that
season less persecuted by the Indians. If they
went all the way down the Rio Negro in May, they
would reach the Amazon long before its beaches
began to be exposed; but it has been ascertained
that they sojourn awhile on the Rio Branco, whose
beaches are earlier uncovered. Flocks of Wild
Ducks sometimes accompany the Ibises; and it is
quite possible that some of the smaller aquatic and
riparial fowls make similar migrations.
When the Ibises are roosting, a shot or two
from a gun is enough to make the whole caravan
take to flight and remove to some distance; but
the Indians of San Carlos know better than to
scare them away with firearms. They get into
their canoes a little after midnight, creep silently
up the river, and under cover of the night dis-
embark beneath the trees where the Ibises are
roosting. Then, when at break of day the birds
wake up and begin to stir and to be visible, the
Indians pick them off with poisoned darts from
their blowing-canes, in great numbers, before the
bulk of the flock takes alarm; so that they mostly
return to the village with great piles of dead Ibises;
and although this lasts only three or four days, the
quantity killed is so great that, what with fresh
and what with barbecued game, everybody feasts
royally for a fortnight; whereas throughout the
rest of the year the dearth of provisions exceeds
what I have experienced elsewhere in South
America.
376 NOTES OF A BOTANIST ae
The Ibises doubtless undertake these voyages
from the testimony and under the guidance of the
elders, far more than from any inherited know-
ledge or instinct ; whereas the flights of butterflies
one would think must be directed by instinct alone,
without any aid from experience.
Many mammals wander far in search of food;
and some that go in bands, such as wild Pigs and
some Monkeys, have known feeding-places at
certain times of the year, when some particular
kind of fruit is in season there; so that the ex-
perienced Indian hunter often knows in what
direction to bend his steps to fall in with a certain
class of game. It is well known how fond all
animals are of the Alligator pear, which is the fruit
of a large Laurel (Persea gratissima). 1 have seen
cats prefer it to every other kind of food; and the
wild cat-like animals are said to be all passionately
fond of it. I have been told by an Indian that in
the forests between the Uaupés and the Japurda, he
once came on four Jaguars under a wild Alligator
pear tree, gnawing the fallen fruits and snarling
over them as so many cats might do) d@iage
gathered flowers of at least four species of Persea,
but was never fortunate enough to find one of them
with ripe fruit; so that I have missed seeing the
concourse of animals of many kinds which I am
assured assemble in and under those trees, attracted
by the fruit. While speaking of fruit-eating car-
nivora, it is worth mentioning that dogs in South
America often take naturally to eating fruit. I had
in Peru a fine Spanish spaniel who, so long as he
could get ripe plantains, asked for no better food.
He would hold them between his paws and pull off
XXII ANIMAL MIGRATIONS B97,
the skin in strips with his teeth so delicately as not
to foul them in the least; so that I have occasion-
ally eaten a plantain of his peeling.
I fancy Monkeys sometimes go on day after day
along the banks of a river, their rate of progress
depending on the quantity of food they find to eat
and waste. I have watched them at this in a strip
of Mauritia palms, which stretched for a distance
of some days’ journey along the banks of a river.
The Chorro (Barrigudo of Brazil), a monkey of
the hot plain, sometimes ascends the slopes of the
mm@es to 5000 or 6000 feet, apparently to eat
the fruit of the Tocte or Quitonian walnut (an
undescribed species of Juglans), which is frequent at
that elevation ; but it is said never to pass a night
flere.
An Indian will tell you at what time of year
certain fruit-eating fowls are to be met with on the
banks of a river, and at what time they must be
sought for deep in the forest. I remember coming
on a flock of one of the small Turkeys called Cuyubi
(Penelope cristata, or an allied species), on the
banks of the Uaupés, feeding on the fruit of so
deadly a plant as a Strychnos (S. vrondeletzordes,
Benth.) ; but the succulent envelope of the fruit is
innocuous, like that of our poisonous Yew. I had
been forewarned that we might expect to find them
at that particular spot, and thus occupied; so that
we had our guns ready, and knocked several of
ivemeover. Indeed they were so tame, or so
gluttonous, that when a shot was fired and one of
them fell, the rest either took no heed or only
hopped on to another branch and recommenced
feeding ; and it was not until we had fired and
378 NOTES OF A BOTANTSa CHAP.
reloaded three or four times that the survivors took
wing and flew off.
On the slopes of the volcano Tunguragua, the
steepest and most symmetrical cone, though not the
loftiest, of the Quitonian Andes, I have seen flocks
of another Turkey (allied to, but distinct from, the
Uru-muttin of Brazil) feeding on the plum-like
drupes of the Motilon,’ and on the berries of an
undescribed Melastome. Besides these fruit-trees,
there were also numerous fruit-bearing bushes near,
including some true Brambles, Whortleberries, and
a Hawthorn, all of which probably afforded food to
the turkeys. This species seems to inhabit a zone,
between 6000 and 10,000 feet, on the wooded
flanks of Tunguragua, and within those limits to
make the perpetual round of the mountain, being
always found on that side where there is most
ripe fruit to be had; and the birds are so tame and
sluggish when feeding that the Indians easily kill
them with sticks.
I should suppose that these and other gallina-
ceous birds have their fixed centres of resort
(breeding- and roosting-places), from which they
never stray far. Many Parrots and Macaws, |
know, have. On the western slopes of the
Quitonian Andes, immense flocks of Parrots ascend
by day to a height of 8000 or go000 feet, where
they ravage the fields of maize and other grain, but
always descend to certain warm wooded valleys, at
2000 to 4000 feet, to roost. The flights of vast
multitudes of garrulous parrots and macaws to and
fro between their roosting- and feeding-places, in
1 This name is given to Symplocos cernua, H. B. K., and also to two (or
more) species of Hieronyma, all bearing edible drupes.
XXIII ANIMAL MIGRATIONS 379
the grey of the evening and morning, is one of the
first things that strikes the attention of the voyager
on the Amazon.
The periodical appearance of certain birds in a
district has been supposed by the inhabitants to
have some mysterious connection with the Christian
festivals. Thus there are two beautiful little birds
in Maynas, apparently belonging to different genera,
for one of them is a Seven-coloured Tanager
(Pajaro de siete colores), and the other (which I
have not seen) is said to be of a bright blue colour
and differently shaped; but both are called by the
Indians Huata-pisco (Bird of the Year), because
they make their appearance together, in large
flocks, about the end of the year (people will tell
you, precisely on Christmas Day), and remain
throughout January, when they are seen no more
until the same epoch comes round again. Mr.
Bates has given a capital account of the movements
of these hunting-parties of frugivorous and insec-
tivorous birds, and of the superstition of the Papa-
uira or Patriarch Bird, who is supposed to head
them (vol. ii. p. 333 e¢ seg.). I suspect that this is
something more than mere superstition, and that
the Patriarch leaders are not one but several to
each predatory band.
DISTRIBUTION OF FISHES
The abundance of fish in rivers of white water,
and their scarcity in black-water rivers, may easily
be shown to depend chiefly on the luxuriant littoral
vegetation of the former and its scarcity or utter
absence in the latter; for on the Rio Negro there
380 NOTES OF A -BOTANTS? CHAP.
are (with one notable exception’) no aquatics and
no shore grasses. Compare this with the broad
fringe of tall, succulent, amphibious grasses on the
shores of the Amazon, or detached and floating down
it in the shape of large islands, and of luxuriant
aquatics, some fixed by roots, others floating
(Victoria, Jussiza, Pontederia, Frogbits, Azolla,
Salvinia, Pistia, etc.), in deep still bays, but especi-
ally in lakes and channels communicating with the
main river.
Some of the tributaries of the Rio Negro, how-
ever, have plenty of fish, namely, those of more or
less turbid water, of which the Rio Branco holds
the first rank, and after it come the Marania-and
Cauaboris, all entering on the left bank. In these
rivers many Amazon fish are said to be repeated.
About the mouth of the Rio Branco is the only
place in the Rio Negro where the Pirarucu is found
—that noble and remarkable fish, so characteristic
of the Amazon. With the exception of the Pirarucu,
most of the larger fish of the Amazon recur on the
Upper Orinoco, above the cataracts; at least the
Indians assert them to be the same, and to unskilled
eyes they are undistinguishable. The Valenton
or Lablab of the Orinoco, for instance, is surely
the same as the large Pirahyba of the Amazon ;
the Pavon as the Tucunaré-: the Ralladovasecie
Surubim; the Muructitu as the Tambaqui; the
Cajaru as the Pira-arara, and so on.
Many of the fishes of the Rio Negro travel up it
to spawn, and especially up some of its tributaries ;
but the wanderings to and fro of fish in quest of
1 That of the Podostemons on granite rocks in the falls and rapids. “
XXIII ANIMAL MIGRATIONS 381
food may be compared to that already noted of wild
turkeys ; for the principal subsistence of fish in the
Rio Negro is on the fruits of riparial trees, some of
which seem scarcely touched by either bird or
monkey. A small laurel-like bush (Carazpa laurt-
folia, S.) lines the banks in many places, and bears
damson-like drupes, which are the favourite food of
that delicious fish the Uaracti or Aractt. When the
ripe drupes are dropping into the water they attract
shoals of Uaract. Then the fisherman stations his
canoe at dawn of day in the mouth of some still
igarape, overshaded by bushes of Uaracti-Tamacoari
(the native Indian name of the tree), and with his
arrows picks off the fish as they rise to snatch the
floating fruits. It ought to be mentioned that the
fish of the Negro, if much fewer, are some of them
perhaps superior in flavour to any Amazon fish,
whereof the Uaracu is an example, and the large
Pirahyba is another, the latter being so luscious
that it is difficult to know when one has had enough
Oleitwmereas the same or a very closely allied
species of the Amazon is often scarcely edible.’
I have, in what precedes, purposely avoided
speaking of the way in which animals prey on each
other, because the ultimate measure of the amount
of animal life must always depend on that of vege-
table life, and not because I shut my eyes to the
fact.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
I leave these dsyecta membra in the hands of
naturalists, hoping that they may find among them
1 For further information on the fishes of the Rio Negro I must refer to
Mr. Wallace’s interesting account of that river (77avels, chaps. ix., x., and
xvi.), and to Schomburgk’s “shes of Guzana.
282 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
e)
some bone to pick. They bear on many problems
for which there do not yet exist materials, nor do |
possess the skill requisite to arrive at a correct
solution. On one point only I am pretty clear, viz.
that almost every kind of animal now existing in
Cisandine Tropical America might find suitable
food and lodging on any parallel between the
southern tropic and the mouth of the Orinoco;
which is as much as to say ‘that they would find
everywhere either the one plant they most delighted
to feed on or others which might suit them almost
or quite as well. ‘The continual substitution of new
forms encountered as we advance in any direction
does not, on a superficial view, show much corre-
spondence between animals and plants—a fact which
may be put otherwise, thus: Suppose on a given
area at the foot of the Andes every species of some
class of animals to be distinct from those of the
same class on an equal area at the mouth of the
Amazon, it does not therefore follow that every
plant is different on the two areas; we know,
indeed, that such is not.the case. Yet the modifi-
cations that have been and are still in progress
among vegetable forms must have some corre-
spondence with those that take place in animals ;
for all the realms of Nature act and react on each
other. The atmosphere and the earth (with its
productions, animal and vegetable) are continually
giving and taking ; and as their actual relations to
each other vary more widely at different points
along the equatorial belt than elsewhere on the
earth’s surface, it is plain that what seems equili-
brium is either oscillation or progress in some
direction. If plants were the only organic exist-
a ANIMAL MIGRATIONS 383
ences, and there were no animals to aid in their
reproduction, to feed upon them, to dispose of their
dead carcasses, etc., the dominant forms would
doubtless be quite different from what they are
now. Darwin has shown by an admirable series of
observations how necessary insect agency is to the
fertilisation of the flowers of many plants. Hence
the organs of those insects and the parts of the
flowers have been (and are being) continually
modified, or moulded, the one on the other. I can
conceive that if certain Orchids were henceforth
entirely freed from the visits of insects, their flowers,
notwithstanding the apparent permanence of in-
herited (though now useless) peculiarities, would
immediately ¢ezd to revert to the symmetry which
no doubt they possessed in the remote types. I
have a good deal of evidence to show that in
tropical countries many peculiarities of structure in
the leaves and other parts of plants (prevailing
through large suites of species and genera) have
been brought about, and are still in part maintained,
by the unremitting agency of insects, especially of
Ants. These and many other matters require the
fullest investigation before the precise relations of
the changes, in animals and plants, that are taking
place under our eyes, can be properly understood
and appreciated,
CAPE ERO
ANTS AS MODIFIERS OF PLANT-STRUCTURE
| THE paper which forms the greater part of this
chapter was written during the first few years after
Spruce’s return to England, and at a time when
he had probably not seen, and had certainly not
carefully read, the Ovzgzn of Species, the teachings
of which at a later period he fully appreciated. At
this period he accepted—as did almost all natu-
ralists, including Darwin himself—what is termed the
heredity of acquired characters, such as the effects
on the individual of use or disuse of organs, of abun-
dant or scanty nutrition, of heat and cold, excessive
moisture or aridity, and other like agencies. But
in the paper here given he went a step beyond this, .
and expressed his conviction that growths produced
by the punctures and gnawings of ants, combined
perhaps with their strongly acid secretions, con-
tinued year after year for perhaps long ages, at
length became hereditary and thus led to the curious
cells and other cavities on the leaves and stems of
certain plants, which are now apparently constant in
each species and appear to be specially produced for
the use of the ants which invariably frequent them.
This paper Spruce sent to Darwin, asking him
to send it to the Linnean Society if he thought it
384
Oo ANTS AND PLANT-S1RUCTURE 385
worthy of being read there. I will here give some
passages from Darwin’s reply, dated April 1, 1869.
“The facts which you state are extraordinary,
and quite new to me. If you can prove that the
effects produced by ants are really inherited, it
would be a most remarkable fact, and would open
up quite a new field of inquiry. You ask for my
opinion; if you had asked a year or two ago I
should have said that I could not believe that the
visits of the ants could produce an inherited effect ;
puel ave lately come to believe rather more in
inherited mutilations. I have advanced in opposi-
tion to such a belief, galls not being inherited.
After reading your paper I admit, Firstly, from the
presence of sacs in plants of so many families, and
their absence in certain species, that they must be
due to some extraneous cause acting in tropical
South America. Secondly, I admit that the cause
must be the ants, either acting mechanically or, as
may perhaps be suspected from the order to which
iney. belong, from some secretion. Thirdly, |
admit, from the generality of the sacs in certain
species, and from your not having observed ants in
certain cases (though may not the ants have paid
previous visits?), that the sacs are probably in-
herited. But I cannot feel satisfied on this head.
Have any of these plants produced their sacs in
European hot-houses? Or have you observed the
commencement of the sacs in young and unfolded
leaves which could not fosszdly have been visited
bythe ants? lf you have any such. evidence, |
would venture strongly to advise you to produce
aes Lge
VOL. II 2
386 NOTES OF A BOTANIST et,
“T may add that you are not quite compet
(towards the close of your paper) in supposing that
I believe that insects directly modify the structure
of flowers. I only believe that spontaneous varia-
tions adapted to the structure of certain insects
flourish and are preserved.”
The paper was. read on April” 15, aeeoneena
then, as usual, was submitted to the Council to
decide as to its publication. After full considera-
tion, their decision was communicated to Spruce
by the secretary as follows :—
“T am requested to communicate to you their
opinion that the paper will require modification
before they can recommend its publication. It is
considered that the evidence adduced is insufficient
to overcome the improbability of the sacs in the
course of ages having become inherited, and that
although there would be no objection to a state-
ment that the author has been led to suspect that
the structures in question are now inherited (which
might lead to further investigations), it would be
inadvisable for the Society to publish positive state-
ments on the subject of inheritance without much
fuller evidence. The Council wish me to say that
if you do not object to alter the title of the paper,
and to strike out some short passages, marked in
pencil on the margin, they will be glad to undertake
the publication of the paper, as they think it highly
desirable that the facts recorded should be made
known.”
The papér was returned to him to miakeseae
alterations required if he wished to de soMaour
nothing more was heard of it, and it has remained
roe INis AND PLEANT-STRUCTURE 387
among his papers till now. Spruce was very sensi-
tive to criticisms of his writings by persons who
had not the same knowledge that he possessed ;
but in this case I think it probable that he himself,
later on, recognised the incompleteness of the evi-
dence. A year and a half later he corresponded
with Mr. Hanbury on the subject, and he was
evidently seeking for more information. I[ there-
fore now print his paper in full, with a few omissions
of unimportant details or digressions, giving the
passages objected to within square brackets. It
will be seen that they involve very slight alterations,
in no way affecting the facts or observations of the
paper itself. That he intended to modify and en-
large the paper may perhaps be concluded from the
fact that the paper cover in which the MSS. was
kept contains in pencil two alternative titles, both
less dogmatic than that on the paper itself. They
are as follows :—
(ye On Changes in the Structure of Plants
produced by the Agency of Ants.”
fe On Structures formed in Living Plants by
Ants, which apparently become permanent
inthe oipecies.
The paper here follows, and I shall at the end
adduce a few additional facts which will serve asa
partial reply to the questions put by Darwin. |
388 NOTES‘OF A BOTANISa CHAP.
AntT-AGENCY IN PLANT-STRUCTURE; Or the Modi-
fications in the Structure of Plants which
have been caused by Ants [by whose long-
continued Agency they have become Heredi-
tary and have acquired sufficient Permanence
to be employed as Botanical Characters |.
In the forests of the Amazon and Orinoco, and
elsewhere in Tropical America, there are numerous
plants belonging to very distinct orders, which have
singular dilatations of the tissues and membranes,
in the form of sacs on the leaves, or of hollow fusi-
form nodes on the petioles or branches (becoming
tubers on the rhizomes), or of slender inordinately-
elongated fistulose branches. I have reason to
believe that all these apparently abnormal structures
have been originated by ants, and are still sustained
by them; so that if their agency were withdrawn,
the sacs would immediately tend to disappear from
the leaves, the dilated branches to become cylin-
drical, and the lengthened branches to contract ;
[and although the inheritance of structures no longer
needed might in many cases be maintained for
thousands of years without sensible declension, I
suppose that in some it would rapidly subside and
the leaf or branch revert to its original form |.
§ 1. Of Sac-bearing Leaves
These exist chiefly in certain genera of -Mela-
stomes, whereof one (Tococa) is very numerous
in species and individuals throughout the Amazon
valley, growing in the form of slender weak bushes,
8 to 12 feet high, chiefly in that part of the forest
oo ANTS AND PLANIT-STRUCTURE 380
which is adjacent to and inundated by the rivers
and lakes, but sometimes deep in the virgin forest,
wherever the land is so low that the water of rains
may accumulate thereon to a slight depth. All the
species have the unmistakable aspect of their order
—the ribbed opposite leaves, the polypetalous flowers
with beaked porose anthers, etc.; but they are dis-
tinguished at sight from most others of the order
by the large, thin, lanceolate or ovate acuminate
leaves, very sparsely set with long hairs, and having
a hollow sac or a pair of sacs at the base either of
all the leaves, or (more frequently) of only one of
each pair when that one is much larger than the
other. ‘The leaves in the majority of the species
have but three ribs; a few species, however, have
five- or even seven-ribbed leaves; but, in all, the
origin of the innermost pair of ribs is an inch or so
up the midrib from the base of the leaf; and it is
this portion of the leaf, from the insertion of the
inner ribs downwards, which is occupied by the sac.
The latter sometimes takes up only a part of the
breadth of the leaf, when it is technically considered
tebe seated ov the leaf (Epiphysca); in other
cases the sac in its lower half absorbs the whole
breadth of the leaf, when it seems to be seated half
on the leaf, half on the petiole (Anaphysca); or,
lastly, throughout its length it absorbs the whole
breadth of the leaf, and then seems seated entirely
on the petiole (Hypophysca). That it is really
formed in all cases at the expense of the lamina,
and not of the petiole, is proved by the occasional
occurrence of imperfectly-developed sacs in the
hypophyscous form, bordered by a narrow wing con-
tinuous with the leaf, and giving to the latter a
390 NOS OF VA BOTA wis CHAP.
oO
panduriform outline. Sometimes there is a pair of
sacs, one on each side of the midrib, but in most
cases the two sacs are confluent into one, which has
a medial furrow along the upper side.
I’ proceed to describe a few: forme en wea: in
various species of Tococa. In one species (7. dso-
lenta, MSS. hb. 1412) which grows by forest-streams
entering the lower part of the Rio Negro, the
leaves of each pair are very unequal, and the larger
of the two (11 by 34 inches) is alone sacciferous.
The axils of the inner pair of ribs are perforated,
giving entrance to two tubes or fistula—one on
each side of the midrib—which conduct to a large
basal sac, inhabited by small brownish ants, which
pour out of the tubes and patter over the leaves to
attack any animal that disturbs their domicile.
In most species, however, the sac springs at once
from the base of the inner ribs, through whose per-
forated axils the ants have access to it without any
intervening tubular way.
LZ. dullifera, Mart., grows in moist forests about
the mouth of the Rio Negro, and is of humbler
growth than the other species of the genus, reach-
ing barely 5 feet; but the berries are more juicy
and better flavoured than in any other Tococa,
although so scanty and perishable that they cannot
possibly serve as food for ants except for a very
short period, and can hardly have influenced them
in the choice of an abode. The leaves are long-
lanceolate, either subequal and then with a large
fusiform sac at the base of each of the pair, or very
unequal and then the smaller leaf esaccate. The
sacs afford refuge to multitudes of minute reddish
ants which are fragrant when crushed. , Most species
moe No AND PEANT-STRUCTURE 30:
of Tococa, however, are inhabited by ants of medium
size, with a blackish or brownish abdomen and pale
thorax, and a milky fluid exudes from them when
crushed ; they bite but do not sting.
T. macrophysca, Benth. (Spruce, 2188), grows in
moist caatingas of the Rio Negro and Uaupés, and
has leaves sometimes a foot long, not very unequal,
and all of them usually bearing a stout elongato-
eGmetorm sac, an inch long, at the top of.the
petiole.
Tococas are scattered over the Amazon region
from the sea-coast to the roots of the Andes, and
two species (7. pterocalyx, sp. n., and 7. parviflora,
sp. n.) ascend the Peruvian Andes to 2500-3000
feet. I gathered altogether twenty-four or twenty-
five species of Tococa, and all but one or two (7.
plantfolia, Benth., and a closely-allied species or
variety) have sacs on the leaves inhabited by ants.
An examination of the circumstances of growth of
the esaccate 7. planzfolia seems to throw light on
biemeniein Ol Sacs on. the leaves of the other
species.
Lococa planifolia grows here and there along the
shores of the Rio Negro, at least as far up as to
the foot of the cataracts, or say for about 700 miles.
From the cataracts upwards, on the main river, on
its tributary the Uaupés, and on some clear-water
aumuents Of the Casiquiari, it is replaced by an
allied non-sacciferous species or possibly a mere
variety. Wherever it grows, it always occupies the
very edge of the riparial forest, to which it forms
an inner fringe, along with various Rubiacee,
Apocynee, etc., of similar humble growth, all of
which are completely submerged in the time of flood ;
392 NOWES OF A BOTAN CHAP.
so that even if the leaves of this Tococa were sac-
ciferous, they could not afford a permanent refuge to
ants. But all the other sub-riparial species grow
so far away from the real shore that the periodical
inundations never overwhelm them completely, but
leave at least the tops of the branches out of water ;
and it is noticeable that not only are the first leaves
of young plants of every Tococa often esaccate, but
that also the lowest leaves of each ramulus of the
adult plant have either no sac or only the slightest
rudiment of one. I suppose, then, that the primeval
Tococa—the ancestor of all the existing species—had
no sac at all on the leaves, but that a few ants hav-
ing sheltered in the deep narrow angles formed by
the junction of the prominent lateral ribs with the
midrib, found the axils perforable, and having thereby
reached the interior of the leaf, scooped outsrnc
parenchyma between the two surfaces. The leaves
of any plant, when its juices are sucked away by
insects (Aphides, for example) or otherwise diverted
from their usual course on the one surface, are apt to
become bullate on the opposite surface; hence it is
easy to understand that, when mined by ants, the
cuticular tissue of both surfaces should expand out-
wardly and contract laterally so as to form a sac,
whose further enlargement would be effected by the
continual crowding in of ants. [This process re-
peated on the plants for many generations would
induce an hereditary tendency to the production of
sac-bearing leaves.| It is natural that the ants
should select the largest leaves, as affording most
room for their operations; but that one leaf of
each pair should be often larger than the other
depends on some cause anterior to any action of
PpraNS ANDY PLANT-STRUCTURE 393
ants, for it is a very common thing all through the
order of Melastomes. In species which have the
leaves of each pair nearly equal, it is usual to see
some of the smaller ones saccate and others alto-
gether esaccate on the same plant. [I have often
examined half-crown plants and have seen that sacs
begin to be developed (by inheritance) long before
any ants touch them, but that when the sacs are
taken possession of by ants they speedily became
much enlarged. |
Seeing, then, how the sacs on the leaves have
originated, and what purpose they serve, it is plain
that a species of Tococa, like 7: Alanzfolia, inhabit-
ing the very river’s brink, and liable to be com-
pletely submerged for several months of every year,
could never serve as a permanent residence for ants,
nor consequently have any character impressed on
it by their merely temporary sojourn; even if their
instinct did not teach them to avoid it altogether,
as they actually seem to do; whereas the species of
Tococa growing far enough inland to maintain their
heads above water even at the height of flood are
thereby fitted to be permanently inhabited, and are
consequently xever destitute of saccate leaves, nor at
aly season of the year clear of ants; as I have
reason to know from the many desperate struggles
I have had with those pugnacious little creatures
when breaking up their homes for the sake of
specimens.
In one species (hb. 3477) with seven-ribbed
leaves, growing by the Rio Negro near the mouth
of the Casiquiari, the leaves on some plants have a
small distorted sac at the base inhabited by ants,
and on others are nearly all esaccate; and I noted
304 NOTES OF A BOTANIST cone
of this species that the plants grow sometimes where
they are totally overwhelmed by the periodical floods,
rendering them a precarious dwelling-place for the.
ants. This leads to the suspicion that some of the
sacciferous species, growing far away in the forest,
may have sprung originally from TZ. planzfolza,
which grows on the river-banks; and even that
some of the epiphyscous, anaphyscous, and hypo-
physcous species may be mere varieties of one
another, or may have had a common progenitor
at no very remote epoch. This and many other
interesting problems can only be solved when
naturalists shall become permanent members of the
fauna of Equatorial America, and not as now have to
be classed among “occasional visitants”’; for their
solution would require observations to be carried on
through many consecutive years on the same spot.
Besides Tococa, there are other allied genera of
Melastomes, viz. Myrmidone, Mart., Majeta, Aubl.,
and Calophysa, DC., which have sac-bearing leaves
infested by ants. They are all found in the forests
of humble sparse growth called ‘“caatingas,” and
especially where the soil of white sand, or the
granite floor almost bare of herbs, lies low and is
liable to get transformed into a shallow lake in the
time of heavy rains, thus driving ants and other
insects to take refuge in the trees and bushes. Of
Myrmidone I gathered four species, including the
original AZ. macrosperma of Martius. . They are
low-growing, sparingly-branched shrubs of 3 to
8 feet; the leaves of each pair are very unequal
in size, the smaller one sometimes even obsolete,
the larger saccate, as in the Zococa Anaphysce,
but the sac always rugose as well as unisulcate ;
Bae NES AND PEANI-STRUCTURE 395
flowers solitary, rather large, terminal or axillary,
fccmedinine red); hairs of stem, leaves, etc.,
spreading, more copious than in Tococa, and red
or crimson, corresponding curiously with the colour
of the minute ants—of that viciously-stinging tribe
called ‘‘ Formiguinhas de fogo” (Little Fire-Ants)—
which inhabit the sacs, and also make covered ways
of intercommunication along the outside of the
stem and branches—a precaution | have rarely
noted among the Tococa-dwellers.
Myrmidone rotundifolia, sp. n., grows in caatingas
in the lower angle of the confluence of the Rio
Negro and Casiquiari. It is only 3 feet high,
and has crowded, subunequal leaves, the larger of
each pair 34 inches long, orbiculari-panduriform,
eoreate’ at the base, where there is a-large sac;
while the smaller leaf is orbiculari-cordate and
mostly (but not always) has no sac.
Mazeta guianensts, Aubl., has very much the
habit of the Myrmidones, but it has also fistulose
branches swollen at the nodes, so that the inhabitants
have an inner way of communication between the
sacs at the base of the larger of each pair of sessile
leaves.
Calophysa tococorda, DC., is a slender shrub with
thin hairy leaves, the larger leaf of each pair having
a large bifid sac at the base of the petiole; but the
frequent presence of a narrow wing connecting
the leaf with the sac proves that the latter belongs
really to the lamina (as in the Tococas) and that
the leaf is sessile.
Examples of sac-like ant-dwellings exist in the
leaves of plants of other orders, so like those already
described in Melastomes, that it is scarcely worth
396 NOTES OF A BOTANTSS CHAP.
while to do more than indicate some of the species.
The solitary instance known to me in Chrysobalans
is that of Azrtella physophora, Mart., a slender
arbuscle growing just within reach of inundations
in the forests about the mouth of the Rio Negro.
The distichous, oblong, apiculate leaves are nearly
a foot long, and at the cordate base have a pair
of compresso-globose sacs tenanted by ants. On
cutting open the sacs I was rather surprised to find
them lined with cuticular tissue and hairs, just like
the underside of the leaf; which seems to show
that they have been produced by a recurvation of
the alze of the leaf, through the ants nesthme at
first (Aphis-like) under the leaf and causing it to
become bullate, and that the recurved margins have
at length reached and coalesced with the midrib so
as to form a pair of sacs.
Rubiads afford a few instances of sac-bearing
leaves, especially in the genus Amaiona (Aubl.).
In caatingas of the Rio Negro, almost throughout
its extent, grows Amaztona sacczfera, Mart., a small
bushy tree with leaves three together, above a foot
long, obovate with a minute apiculus, tapering to
the base, where there are two contiguous sacs in-
habited by small red fire-ants. The fruit resembles
a large plum (except that like the leawecmim =i
harshly hairy), and when ripe is soft and edible ;
but long before it reaches that stage the ants crowd
on it and seem to suck the juices through the pores
On thercutiele:
To the same order belongs Remzjza physophora,
Bth., a remarkable tree found at the falls of the
Uaupés, having the aspect of an Amaiona, but the
dry capsules and other characters of Cinchona and
mo ANTS AND PLEANT-STRUCTURE 397
its allies. The opposite leaves, 9 inches long, are
oblong-oval, obtuse with a short apiculus, near the
base abruptly panduriform, and bearing a small ant-
sac on the midrib. All the other known species of
this large genus have non-sacciferous leaves.
In all the plants I have seen bearing sacs on the
leaves, to whatever order they belong, it is remark-
able that the pubescence consists of long hairs
having a tubercular base; and although I do not
see what connection that peculiarity can have with
the ants’ choice of a habitation, it is probable they
find some advantage in it.
§2. Of Inflated Petioles
A true swelling of the petiole, inhabited by ants,
amaedas 1 believe) owing its existence to their
agency, I have seen only in two genera of Legu-
minose Czesalpinieze, viz. Tachigalia and Sclero-
lobium. The Tachigalize are low-growing riparial
trees, of black-water rivers, and have pinnate, often
silky foliage, and small, yellow, sweet-smelling, nearly
regular flowers disposed in panicles. All have
trigonous petioles, which are mostly dilated at the
base into a fusiform sac tenanted by ants. 7. carzfes,
sp. n., grows abundantly on the banks, and on
inundated islands, of the Uaupés. It is a spreading
itee Of 30 feet, and has the ramuli, petioles, and
leaves clad with a fine, close, silky pubescence.
The sacs of the petiole are inhabited by small black
ants, whose entrance is by a little hole on the
underside of the sac. TZ. ptychophysca, sp. n., grows
in moist sandy caatingas by the same river, and has
a similar sac on the petiole.
398 NOTES OR ABOl ANiSa CHAP.
The species of Sclerolobium are not usually
riparial, but one species (S. odoratzsstmum, sp. n.)
is eminently so, constituting a great ornament of
the shores and islands of the Rio Negro towards
the mouth of the Casiquiari, and perfuming the
whole breath of the river with the abundance of its
pale yellow honey-scented flowers ; and it is notable
that this is the only species of the genus in which
I have found sacciferous petioles. The sac is large,
extending upwards from the knee of the petiole to
the base of the second pair of -leatlets, anditemacea
furrow along the upper face.
I presume the ants have been induced to take
up their residence on these particular treccerem
account of the abundance and long persistence of
their honied flowers. On other species*of Selere-
lobium, inhabiting dry lands solely, such as S. ¢zzc¢o-
yium, Benth., and S. panzculatum, Vog., | have seen
the flowering panicles infested with little fire-ants,
which, however, seemed to have their permanent
habitation in the ground, about or near the tree-
roots, and never to perforate the leaf-stalks. Many
other Leguminose, especially the woody climbing
Phaseolez, are visited by ants when in flower, and
knobs or galls caused by the perforation of those
insects .are. frequent on the panicles jot #Bieeies
and allied genera; [but I have not remarked any
instance of such knobs having become hereditary,
except in Pterocarpus ancylocalyx, Benth., a small
tree on the banks of the Solimoés or Upper Amazon,
which has the rachis of the racemes thickened in
the middle, the swelling being sometimes (but not
always) tenanted by ants].
In the shrubby Cassias, which are common weeds
moe ANTS AND PLANT-STRUCTURE 399
of tropical America, the knee of the petiole may
sometimes be seen hollowed and enlarged by ants ;
[outamie action of these insects ‘has not been
maintained with sufficient constancy to render the
swelling a permanent character in any species of
Cassia I have met with].
Ants congregate on the pods of some Cassias
and other plants which have seeds in sweet pulp;
and on those parts of any plant where they find
suitable food, in the shape of mucilaginous exuda-
tions, etc.; but they mostly sojourn there just so
long as that food lasts, and no longer; or otherwise
they merely visit the plants for the sake of collecting
their products and carrying them off at once to a
permanent storehouse elsewhere.
§ 3. Of Inflated Branches
Ants’ nests in swellings of the branches are
found chiefly in soft-wooded trees of humble growth,
which have verticillate or quasi-verticillate branches
and leaves, and especially where the branches put
forth at the extremity a whorl or fascicle of three
or more ramuli; then, either at each leaf-node or
at least at the apex of the penultimate (and some-
times of the ultimate) branches, will probably be found
an ant-house, in the shape of a hollow swelling of
the branch; communication between the houses
being kept up, sometimes by the hollowed interior
of the branches, but nearly always by a covered
way along their outside.
The genus Cordia (Boraginacez) affords many
examples of this structure. . One of the rather
artificial sections into which Cordia is divided in the
400 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
“ Prodromus,” viz. Physoclada, is characterised by
“rami sub foliis congesto-verticillatis inflati cavi,” the
hollow inflation being tenanted by ants, whence C.
nodosa, the type-species of the group, is known to the
South Americans as “Ant tree” (Pao de formiga).
C. formicarum, Hoffmans, and C. callococca, Aubl.,
are supposed to be synonyms of C. zodosa.
Cordia gerascantha, Jacq., differs from the Physo-
clade in the structure of its rather showy white
flowers. It rises to a stoutish tree of 30 to 4o feet,
and is throughout fasciculately branched (branches.
3-5-nate). At the point where the branches divide
there is mostly a sac, inhabited by very vicious ants
of the tribe called “Tachi” by the Brazthanees aye
preceding species are usually tenanted by the small
fire-ant, but sometimes by the Tachi. Probably
the former was in all cases the original occupant,
and the Tachi is an intruder.
All these sacciferous Cordiz have fascicled or
whorled branches, and are beset (not often densely)
with long coarse hairs arising from tubercles, much
as in the Amaiona and the Melastomacez above
described; but of the numerous other Cordiz |
have gathered, with vague ramification and often
short soft pubescence, not one was seen with
saccate branches, or any other structure serving as
a permanent residence to ants.
Some of the aromatic shrubby Creme with
trichotomous branches, have occasionally the branch-
axils perforated by ants and swollen; but the
process does not seem to have been carried on long
enough to make the character permanent in any
species I have met with.
mao ANTS AND PLANT-STRUCTURE gor
To this category belong the creeping rhizomes
of some ferns which are often beaded with globose
swellings inhabited by ants; e.g. of Phymatodes
Schomburgki, J. Sm.,a not uncommon fern on shady
rocks and trees by the Rio Negro. [Inasmall Poly-
podium, found by Dr. Jameson on the river Napo,
the moniliform character of the rhizomes seems to
have become permanent, for he did not see a single
specimen wanting it; but the presence of ants in
all the swellings revealed the origin of the latter. |
A curious epiphytal genus of Solanaceze, Marckea,
whereof I gathered two species on the Rio Negro
and Uaupés, is singularly affected by ants. The
stem is reduced to a large tuber—sometimes as big
as a child’s head—and attains that size through the
agency of ants, who inhabit its hollow interior and
cover it outwardly with paper of their own manu-
facture. From the tuber radiate several branches,
simple or sparingly forked. The leaves are very
like those of Acuzstus arborescens, save that they
are verticillate (or at least approximated) in one
species (J/. cz/zata, Benth.) in threes and in the other
species in fives; but the large hypocrateriform
corollas, with a tube 3 inches long, are more like
eetmese of some Gesnerea. There are perforated
swellings at the forks of the branches, and some-
times also at the leaf-nodes, which serve the ants
as detached apartments. I-did not see a single
plant wanting the basal tuber.
§ 4. Of Elongated and Fistulose Stems and Branches
There is an order of plants, whereof several
genera and species inhabit Equatorial America, and
WO: 1 2D
402 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
all, with the exception of the herbaceous species,
are infested by ants. The order is Polygonez ;
the ant-infested species belong to the genera
Triplaris, Coccoloba, Campderia, Symmeria, and
Rupprechtia; and the exceptions are species of
Polygonum, some of them closely resembling
common European species. All, both trees and
herbs, grow in moist situations, and most of them
on lands subject to periodical inundations. Not
only is every lignescent Polygonea a _ habitation
for ants, but the whole of the medulla of every
plant, from the root nearly to the growing apex of
the ramuli, is scooped out by those insects. The
ants make a lodgment in the young stem of the ~
tree or shrub, and as it increases in size and puts
forth branch after branch, they extend their hollow
ways through all its ramifications. They appear
to belong all to a single genus, and are long and
slender, with a fusiform, very fine-pointed, dark-
coloured, shining abdomen,. and they all sting
virulently. They are known in Brazil by the name
of “Tachi” or “ Tacyba,” and in- Peru by sthagies
“Tangarana”; and in both countries the same
name is commonly applied to any tree they infest
as to the ants themselves.
A few trees and shrubs of other ‘order ane
similarly infested by Tachi ants; such as Platy-
miscium (Vog.) in Leguminosz, Tachia (Aubl.) in
Gentianez, and Mabea (Aubl.) in Euphorbiacez.
Triplaris surinamensis, Camb., a Polygoneous
tree of very rapid growth, reaching at maturity a
hundred or more feet in height, and conspicuous
from afar when in fruit from the abundance and
bright red colour of its enlarged shuttlecock-like
eee NES AND BPLANT-STRUCTURE 403
calyces, is common all along the Amazon, both on
the river banks and in marshy inland sites; and
solitary trees of it are often seen standing out above
the Cacao plantations. 7: Schomdburgkit, Benth., a
smaller tree, grows in the same way on the Upper
Orinoco and Casiquiari. These trees, as well as
the other arborescent Polygonez, have slender
elongated tubular branches, often geniculate at the
leaf-nodes, and nearly always with perforations, like
pinholes, just within the stipule of each leaf, which
are the sallyports of the garrison, whose sentinels
are besides always pacing up and down the main
trunk, as the incautious traveller finds to his cost
when, invited by the smoothness of the bark, he
ventures to lean his back against a ‘Tachi tree.
I suspect that the remote progenitors of these
ants have at first sheltered in the ocrea (sheathing
stipule) which is so characteristic a feature of the
Polygonee ; but, having found the wood soft and
thin and the pith easy to scoop out, have made
ficia more secure abode within the stem and
branches.
some lachi trees seem as if) they were actually
trying to run away from the ever-encroaching ants.
Coccoloba parimensts, Benth., found by Schomburgk
in British Guayana and by myself on the river
Uaupés, is an arbuscle with a stem 15 feet long,
that tapers upwards and arches over so as finally
to touch the ground, the ants all the while hollow-
ing it out, as it stretches away apparently in the
hopeless attempt to escape their invasion. Some
slender Coccolobas climb high into the adjacent
trees, not by twining but by crooking their branches
and thereby hoisting themselves up; others are
he NOTES OF A BOTANIST 7a
self-standing bushy trees, but still have the same
slender geniculate branches.
The pretty Gentianeous shrubs of the genus
Tachia have long, slender, hollowed branches, that
either hang down or support themselves on the
branches of adjoining shrubs and trees; [yet
although this character is (as I suppose) an un-
doubted inheritance of the effects of ant-agency,
it is singular that Tachias are nowadays often found
entirely free from ants; while the name, taken by
Aublet from the Tupi language, distinctly implies
that in his day they were notoriously ant-infested. |
The genus Tachigalia, spoken of above, also doubt-
less owed its name to the same peculiarity, which
it still enjoys unabated. Aublet tells us he got
these and other Tupi names from a colony of
Indians from Para, who had crossed the Amazon
and established themselves in Cayenne.
Some Mabeas are still more remarkable, the
long sarmentose branches stretching away to a
great length among the adjacent vegetation,
although never actually twining. All Mabeas of
the section Taquari have this habit, and all are
infested by Tachi ants. The slender but tough
twigs, hollowed and polished interiorly by ants, are
a favourite material for tobacco-pipes with the
Indians of the Amazon, who strip off the bark and
paint and varnish the surface of the wood. These
‘“Taquaris,” as they are called, are commonly sold
in the shops at Para. A bundle of them which
I purchased there is now in the Kew Museum.
The arborescent Mabeas, however, with tall erect
trunks and paniculate inflorescence, are apparently
never touched by ants.
om. ANTS AND PLANT-STRUCTURE 405
None of these fistulose trees and shrubs have
any sacs or swellings on the branches, except the
leguminous genus Platymiscium, which has_ the
pinnate leaves usually in whorls of three, and the
tubular branches sometimes dilated at the leaf-
nodes ; so that this genus has almost as much right
to be placed in the preceding section as here.
All the plants above named belong to the eastern
side of the Andes and the Amazonian plain; but
when I crossed over to the western side of the
Andes I saw a Triplaris in the Red Bark forests
of Chimborazo, and Rupprechtia Jamesonz, Meisn.,
and a Coccoloba on the inundated savannas of
Guayaquil, with just the same long, slender, geni-
culate branchlets—infested by the same class of
ants—as their congeners east of the Andes.
A few other plants with long-drawn-out stems
and branches, such as some species of Remyia, may
be supposed to owe at least the exaggeration of
fiat) feature to the ants which still continue to
infest them. :
Nearly all tree-dwelling ants, although in the
dry season they may descend to the ground and
make their summer-houses there, retain the sacs and
tubes above-mentioned as permanent habitations ;
and some kinds of ants appear never to reside else-
where, at any time of year. The same is probably
true also of ants which build nests in trees, of
extraneous materials, independent of the growing
tissues Of the tree ttself There.are some ants
which apparently must always live aloft; and the
Tococa-dwellers continue to inhabit Tococas where
there is never any risk of flood, as in the case of
the Z. pterocalyx, which grows on wooded ridges
406 NOTES OF AeboOrANTSa CHAP.
of the Andes. Their: case is parallel tomthateron
the lake-dwellers of the mouth of the Orinoco
and the inundated savannas of Guayaquil, whose
descendants must needs elevate their houses on
stages six feet or more in height, although nowa-
days erected on rising ground far beyond the
reach of river floods or ocean-tides. We call this
“instinct” in the case of ants, “inherited custom ”
in the case.of men; yet there is“ebvioushy7i0
difference.
There are numerous instances of the effects of
Ant-agency in the plants of Tropical America, not
reducible to any of the foregoing sections. At
Tarapoto, in the Andes of Maynas, a _ prickly
suffruticose Solanum, with pinnate leaves, is
frequent in sandy ground. The fruit as asia
scarlet edible berry, tasting like that of Physalis.
The very prickly calyx persists with the fruit, and
is dilated into a wide cup which holds the water of
rains, for whose sake it is visited by fire-ants that
have their burrows in the sand. The contained
water is slightly mucilaginous, and possibly, after
standing a while, partakes of the flavour of the berry
that is partially immersed in it. After a shower, the
ants may be seen crowding on the inner edge of
the calyx and sipping the liquid; but in dry weather
they fill the calyx, bent apparently on extracting the
last drop. ‘The consequence of this crowding into
the calyx is to sustain and augment the inflation.
The bulging, gummy, water-holding leaf-bases of
many epiphytal Bromels seem to owe _ those
properties to the same influence, for they ear
commonly infested by ants, whose papery nest,
indeed, often envelops the root of the plant.
ean ANTS AND PLANT-STRUCTURE 407
[When I compare these and similar instances
with the Pitchers of the Nepenthes, in which (as |
learn from the accounts of travellers) ants as well as
water are nearly always found, I cannot doubt that
those curious appendages have attained their actual
dimensions through the deepening ‘and widening
which they have undergone from ants through
untold ages. |
We have a curious example, in the genus
Cinchona, of the supposed correlation of a minute
structural peculiarity with chemical and medical
properties. Eminent botanists, such as Weddell
and Karsten, who have studied that genus in its
native forests, have thought they had found a char-
acter in the leaves always associated with a bark
rich in alkaloids, viz. the presence of a small pit or
scrobicule in the axil of each vein on the underside
of the leaf. But when good specimens of C. suc-
ctrubra, the richest of all the barks in alkaloids,
came to be examined, the leaves were found entirely
destitute of scrobicules! See now how this comes
about. The leaves of the Hill Barks—those, namely,
that grow at an elevation of 8000 feet and upwards
—are liable to be infested by a small mite which
nestles in the scrobicules—has caused them, in fact—
its remote ancestors having at first sheltered in the
vein-axils; but C. saccerubra grows always below
that elevation—indeed, as low down as 2400 to 6000
feet—and is the only quinine-producing Cinchona
that descends so low, the other species of Cinchona
that grow at a low elevation having all medically
mortiiess bark... But as all these species, C. szc-
crrubra included, are equally destitute of scrobiculate
leaves and of mites, the reasonable inference is that
408 NOTES OF A BOTANISS CHAP.
that kind of mite is confined to a higher and cooler
zone, and never descends to the warm zone of the
Red Bark.
Let it be observed that these scrobicules, although
I have no doubt of their origin by insect-agency, are
quite as good and permanent a botanical character
as many others—as the sacciferous leaves of Tococa,
for example. [What a vast length of time, com-
pared with man’s brief life, it must have taken to
impress a character of permanence on the latter
character and render it hereditary! Probably a
period far longer than those we choose to designate
“historical” or “bronze” or “stome; 372 sane
imitable researches of Mr. Darwin have rendered it
(to my mind) almost certain that many of the devia-
tions from symmetry in the form and direction of
the parts of a flower have been brought about by
the direct mechanical agency of insects; and that
the origin of every obliquity, unequal-sidedness, and
so forth, in any organ of a plant, is to be sought in
the action of forces not only internal, but also
external to the plant itself.] In this wonderful
“life,” which exists only through perpetual change,
every equilibrium is unstable, and even what we call
“permanence” is but a transitory state.
In fine, the list of structures which I have above
assigned to Ant-agency might no doubt be very
much extended, and perhaps more satisfactorily
classified. I have described only what I have seen
with my own eyes and noted down on the spot; and
corroborative specimens of all the plants mentioned
exist in the Royal Herbarium at Kew, by means of
which the accuracy of my account of the structures
inhabited by ants may at any time be tested.
mo PS AND PLANT-STRUCTURE 409
REMARKS BY THE EDITOR
[The Director of the Kew Gardens, Lieutenant-
Colonel Prain, informs me that the genus Tococa in
cultivation produces the inflated bladders, but he
does not know that the plant has ever been raised
from seed, which is not produced in Europe. Prof.
James W. H. Trail, who has observed these plants
and the ants that infest them in Amazonia, informs
him that in one or two cases plants which had no
ants on them, though possessing the ant-dwellings
moderately developed, were being damaged by
herbivorous pests. This important observation
indicates_the “utility” to the plant itself, which is
always needed to bring natural selection into play
for the purpose of modifying and rendering per-
manent any special adaptation in plant- or animal-
structure. |
Much light is thrown on this question by the
observations of Mr. Henry O. Forbes, recorded in
his Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern Archt-
pelago (pp. 79-82). He found the strange tuberous
Myrmecodia and Hydnophytum abundant in Sumatra
and Amboyna (as they are all over the Archipelago),
and raised many young plants from seed, which,
though completely isolated from the ants that make
their homes in the wild plants, grew vigorously and
developed the internal branching cells and galleries
from the very first. These chambers are formed by
the shrivelling up of a delicate pith with which they
are at first filled, and as they grow rapidly and form
irregular tuberous masses as large as a man’s head,
it seems probable that this pith, as well as the
watery liquid secreted in a large central chamber,
410 NOTES OF A bOTANITSs CHAP.
are the primary attraction to the ants, which are
always of one species and sting virulently.
I find that I had myself given a short account of
these ant-infested plants of both hemispheres in my
volume on Watural Selection and Tropical Nature
(p. 284), in which I refer to Mr. Forbes’s observa-
tions, and also to those of the late Mr. Belt on the
Bull’s-Horn Acacia, which has the thorns in a young
state filled with a sweetish pulpy substance which at
first serves as food for the ants, while later on they
are supplied by honey-glands upon all the leaves.
He also notices and figures in his Waturalist in
Nucaragua (p. 223) the leaves of ‘omeMot mene
Melastomze with swollen petioles, and he states
that, besides the small ants always infesting them, he
noticed, several times, some dark-coloured Aphides.
He also suggests that these small virulently-stinging
ants are of use to the plants by guarding them
from leaf-eating enemies such as caterpillars, snails,
and even herbivorous mammals, but above all
from the omnipresent Sauba or leaf-cutting ant,
which he declares he observed to be much afraid of
these small species.
I think the facts that have now been observed in
both the western and eastern tropics are really
sufficient to enable us to understand the probable
origin of the various remarkable structures that
have been developed in many different groups of
plants and are utilised by ants. There is clearly
“utility”? on both sides. The ants obtain dwellings,
protection from floods, a safe shelter for their eggs
and larve, and a portion of their food—in some
cases perhaps all—from the plant they inhabit ;
while the plant derives protection to its foliage,
moe N DS AND RLANT-STRUCTURE gait
and perhaps also in some cases to its flowers—as
shown by Kerner—by the presence of whole armies
of virulently-stinging ants whose very minute-
ness renders them the more formidable. In the
most remarkable plant-formicaria known—those of
the Myrmecodia and Hydnophytum of the Malay
Archipelago—the whole structure has been proved
to be hereditary, and we may therefore conclude
that in the Tococas of the Amazon, and other cases
in which the cavities inhabited by the ants are
constantly present, they are also hereditary. In
other cases, as Spruce himself states, they are
not so, being directly formed by the ants or being
abnormal growths due to their irritations.
Spruce’s error was in not recognising that the
ever-present variability in all the parts and organs
of plants furnished ¢he materzaZ, and the survival of
the fittest te agency, by which these, as well as all
other specific modifications of plants, have been
brought about ; and that this is a far more powerful,
as well as a more exact and certain, mode of doing
so than the hereditary transmission of mutilations,
the effects of which would in many cases be the
reverse of beneficial.
In my recent work, A7y Lzfe (vol. ti. p. 64), I
give a letter from Spruce written shortly after the
paper was rejected, in which he explains his reasons
for refusing to alter his paper. Three years later
he wrote me another letter on an allied subject—
the purport of aromatic leaves (printed at p. 65),
at the commencement of which he says: “Every
structure, every secretion of a plant is (before all)
beneficial to the plant itself. That is, I suppose, an
incontrovertible axiom.”
AI2 NOTES OF A BOTANIST Giz
This is a great advance on the views stated
in the earlier letter, in which he wrote: ‘“ The ants
cannot be said to be useful to the plants, any more
than fleas and lice are to animals; and the plants
have to accommodate to their parasites as best they
may.’ The evidence, however, now shows that, in
all probability, they are always useful, in which case
their becoming hereditary is merely a question of
variability in the plant, and the continued preser-
vation of those whose variations were in the direc-
tion of utility to the ants.
The whole of these very interesting phenomena,
so well described by Spruce, are thus seen to be in
complete accordance with those of the modification
of flowers by insect-agency, which are now admitted
to depend upon a mutual adaptation for the benefit
of both plant and insect.
They lead, I think, to the establishment of the
general principle, that no special adaptation of one
organism to another can become fixed and hereditary
unless it is of direct utility to both. ]
Chit DE Ry, xxv
INDIGENOUS NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS USED BY
Lie INDIANS OF THE AMAZON
[Tis chapter consists of a carefully written account
of the above subject, compiled by Spruce about 1870
from his notes and observations, and printed in the
short-lived Geographical Magazine. Fortunately, he
presented the beautifully written manuscript to his
Yorkshire friend and fellow-botanist, Mr. G. Stabler,
of Milnthorpe, Westmoreland, who has kindly lent
ine 105 reproduction here, and | feel sure that
it will be both new and interesting to the great
majority of readers of this volume. Besides its
main subject, it touches upon the beliefs and customs
of the Indians who use these narcotics, and on the
proceedings of their ‘ pajés” or medicine-men ; and
incidentally it narrates the occurrence of rare and
mysterious sounds in the forest, and their very
curious explanation, which I believe he was the first,
and probably still the only, traveller to obtain. The
whole essay affords a good example of the writer’s
style and of his power of making even technical
details interesting, and of introducing bright de-
scriptive flashes and touches of human nature in
what might otherwise be a rather dry exposition of
botanical and pharmaceutical facts. T’wo paragraphs
413
AI4 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
only have been omitted as unsuitable for the present
work. The rest is printed verbatim, and will, I
think, even to the non-botanical reader, prove not
one of the least interesting chapters of this volume. |
ON SOME REMARKABLE NARCOTICS OF THE AMAZON
VALLEY AND ORINOCO
In the: accounts given by travellers @orethe
festivities of the South American Indians, and of
the incantations of their medicine-men, frequent
mention is made of powerful drugs used to produce
intoxication, or even temporary delirium. Some of
these narcotics are absorbed in the form of smoke,
others as snuff, and others as drink; but with the
exception of tobacco, and of the fermented drinks
prepared from the grain of maize, the jipmiG or
plantains, and the roots of Manzhot uttlissima, M.
Ayft, and a few other plants, scarcely any of them
are well made out. Having had the good fortune
to see the two most famous narcotics in use, and to
obtain specimens of the plants that afford them
sufficiently perfect to be determined botanically, I
propose to record my observations on them, made
on the Spot, :
The first of these narcotics is afforded by a climb-
ing plant called Caapi. It belongs to the family of
Malpighiaceee, and I drew up the following brief
description of it from living specimens in November
Ihe s) 2.
I. BANISTERIA CaaPl, Spruce
CRITE xS2c. NOW 2712. e470 S58)
Description.—W oody twiner ; stem = thumb, swollen at joints.
Leaves opposite, 6.4 x 3.3, oval acuminate, apiculato-acute,
ee NAREOMICSr AND STIMULANTS 415
thinnish, smooth above, appresso-subpilose beneath ; on a petiole
o.g inch long. Panicles axillary, leafy. Umbels 4-flowered.
Pedicels appresso-tomentose, bracteolate only at base. Calyx
deeply 5-partite; segments ligulate, eglandulose, or with only
rudimentary glands, appresso-tomentose. Petals 5, on longish
thick claws; lamina pentagonal, fimbriate, the fimbrize clavate.
Stamens ro, subunequal ; anthers roundish. Styles 3, subulate ;
stigmas capitate. Capsules muricato-cristate, prolonged on one
side into a greenish-white semiobovate wing (1.7 x 0.6 inch).
ffabitat.—On the river Uaupés, the Icanna, and other upper
tributaries of the Rio Negro, where it is commonly planted in the
rocas or mandiocca-plots; also at the cataracts of the Orinoco,
and on its tributaries, from the Meta upwards; and on the Napo
and Pastasa and their affluents, about the eastern foot of the
Equatorial Andes. Native names: Caapi, in Brazil and Venezuela;
Cadana, by the Tucano Indians on the Uaupés; Aya-huasca (z.e.
Dead man’s vine) in Ecuador.!
iine lower part of the stem is the part used. A
quantity of this is beaten in a mortar, with water,
and sometimes with the addition of a small portion
of the slender roots of the Caapi-pinima.” When
sufficiently triturated, it is passed through a sieve,
which separates the woody fibre, and to the residue
1 Caapi (the Portuguese have made it Caapim) is the Tupi or Lingoa
Geral name for ‘‘grass.” It means simply ‘‘thin leaf,” and in that sense
may correctly be applied to the Lanzsterta Caapfz. In the same language the
Maté of Paraguay (lex Paraguayens?s) is called Caamirim, z.e. ‘‘ small leaf,”
which is certainly not so truly said of it. The Brazilian Indians accent the
last, the Venezuelan the first, syllable of Caapi.
2 Caapi-pinima, z.e. ‘‘ painted Caapi,” is an Apocyneous twiner of the
genus Hzemadictyon, of which I saw only young shoots, without any flowers.
The leaves are of a shining green, painted with the strong blood-red veins. It
is possibly the same species as one I gathered in flower, in December 1849, at
an Indian settlement on the river Trombetas (Lower Amazon), and has been
distributed by Mr. Bentham under the name of Hemadictyon amazonicum,
n.sp. It may be the Caapi-pinima which gives its nauseous taste to the caapi
drink prepared on the Uaupés, and it is probably poisonous, like most of its
tribe ; but it is not essential to the narcotic effect of the Banisteria, which (so
far as I could make out) is used without any admixture by the Guahibos,
Zaparos, and other nations, out of the Uaupés.
The Tucano Indians call this plant Cadana-pira, which means the same as
the Tupi name. They are the most powerful tribe on the Uaupés, and the
greatest consumers of caapi; but all the other tribes on that river—and they
are about a dozen—use it in the same way.
416 NOTES OF A BOTANIST | cmap. xxv
enough water is added to render it drinkable. Thus
prepared, its colour is brownish-green, and its taste
bitter and disagreeable.
The Use and Effects of Caapr
In November 1852 I was present, by special
invitation, at a Dabocuri or Feast of Gifts, held in
a malléca or village-house called Urubt-coara
(Turkey-buzzard’s nest), above the first falls of the
Uaupés ; the village of Panurée, where I was then
residing, being at the base of the same falls, and
about four miles away from Urubu-coara, following
the course of the river, which during that space is a
continuous succession of rapids and cataracts among
rocky islands. We reached the malloca at nightfall,
just as the botutos or sacred trumpets began to
boom lugubriously within the margin of the forest
skirting the wide space kept open and clear of weeds
around the malléca.!. At that sound every female
outside makes a rush into the house, before the
botuitos emerge on the open ; for to merely see one
of them would be to her a sentence of death. We
found about 300 people assembled, and the dances
at once commenced. I need not detail the whole
proceedings, for similar feasts have already been
described by Mr. Wallace (7vavels on the Amazon
and Rio Negro, pp. 280 and 348). Indeed, there
1 Some of the trumpets used at this very feast are now in the Museum of
Vegetable Products at Kew. To get them out of the river Uaupés, when I
left for Venezuela in March 1853, I wrapped them in mats and put them on
board myself at dead of night, stowing them under the cabin floor, out of sight of
my Indian mariners, who would not one of them have embarked with me had
they known such articles were in the boat. The old Portuguese missionaries
called these trumpets juruparis or devils—merely a bit of jealousy on their
part; the botuto being the only fetish—not worshipped, but held in high
respect—throughout the whole Negro-Orinoco region. (See figures opposite. )
+. ceo casenmacarcerenannunvenesoneenenintte: es ren sce oraanaans foe Sensi OSG WD Noninst eni a intehinanini RSS MM eee
re Ae foreats
Side view. Back view.
Nee Be slits.
ee ra SE er
End view.
Fic. 15.—INDIAN SACRED DRUM OR TRUMPET.
The upright outline shows the holes at bottom of the drum (as suspended)
through which the inside has been scooped out. The patterns are in red
and blue.
WOT lL Az. 2s
oa NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 419
is such a family likeness in all the Indian festivities
of Tropical America that, allowing for slight local
variations, the description of one might serve for
all. There is no more graphic account of a native
feast than that by old Wafer, of one he saw on the
Isthmus of Darien (Wew Voyage and Description of
the Isthmus of America, p. 363).
In the course of the night, the young men par-
took of caapi five or six times, in the intervals
between the dances; but only a few of them at a
time, and very few drank of it twice. The cup-
bearer—who must be a man, for no woman can
touch or taste caapi—starts at a short run from the
opposite end of the house, with a small calabash
containing about a teacupful of caapi in each hand,
muttering ‘“ Mo-mo-mo-mo-mo” as he runs, and
gradually sinking down until at last his chin nearly
touches his knees, when he reaches out one of his
cups to the man who stands ready to receive it,
and when that is drunk off, then the other cup.
In two minutes or less after drinking it, its effects
begin to be apparent. The Indian turns deadly
pale, trembles in every limb, and horror is in his
aspect. Suddenly contrary symptoms succeed: he
bursts into a perspiration, and seems possessed with
reckless fury, seizes whatever arms are at hand,
his murucu, bow and arrows, or cutlass, and rushes
to the doorway, where he inflicts violent blows on
the ground or the doorposts, calling out all the
while, ‘Thus would I do to mine enemy (naming
him by his name) were this he!” In .about ten
minutes the excitement has passed off, and the
Indian grows calm, but appears exhausted. Were
he at home in his hut, he would sleep off the
420 NOTES OCF (¥ BOTAMSsH CHAP.
remaining fumes, but now he must shake off his
drowsiness by renewing the dance.
I had gone with the full intention of experiment-
ing the caapi on myself, but I had scarcely dis-
patched one cup of the nauseous beverage, which
is but half a dose, when the ruler of the feast—
desirous, apparently, that I should taste all his
delicacies at once—came up with a woman bearing
a large calabash of caxiri (mandiocca-beer), of which
I must needs take a copious draught, and as I knew
the mode of its preparation, it was gulped down
with secret loathing. Scarcely had I accomplished
this feat when a large cigar, 2 feet long and as
thick as the wrist, was put lighted into my hand,
and etiquette demanded that I should take a few
whiffs of it—/, who had never in my life smoked a
cigar or a pipe of tobacco. Above all this, I must
drink a large cup of palm-wine, and it will readily
be understood that the effect of such a complex dose
was a strong inclination to vomit, which was only
overcome by lying down ina hammock and drink-
ing a cup of coffee which the friend who accom-
panied me had taken the precaution to prepare
beforehand. :
White men who have partaken of caapi in the
proper way concur in the account of their sensations
under its influence. They feel alternations of cold
and heat, fear and boldness. The sight is disturbed,
and visions pass rapidly before the eyes, wherein
everything gorgeous and magnificent they have
heard or read of seems combined; and presently
the scene changes to things uncouth and horrible.
These are the general symptoms, and intelligent
traders on the Upper Rio Negro, Uaupés, and
meee ARCOMCS AND STIMULANTS 421
Orinoco have all told me the same tale, merely with
slight personal variations. A Brazilian friend said
that when he once took a full dose of caapi he saw
allmtixe marvels he had read of in the Avaézan
Nights pass rapidly before his eyes as in a panorama;
but the final sensations and sights were horrible, as
they always are.
At the feast of Urubt-coara I learnt that caapi
was cultivated in some quantity at a roca a few
hours’ journey down the river, and I went there
one day to get specimens of the plant, and (if pos-
sible) to purchase a sufficient quantity of the stems
to be sent to England for analysis; in both which
objects I was successful. There were about a dozen
well-grown plants of caapi, twining up to the tree-
tops along the margin of the roca, and several
smaller ones. It was fortunately in flower and
young fruit, and I saw, not without surprise, that
it belonged to the order Malpighiaceze and the
genus Banisteria, of which I made it out to be an
undescribed species, and therefore called it Banzsterza
Caapz. My surprise arose from the fact that there
was no narcotic Malpighiad on record, nor indeed
any species of that order with strong medicinal
properties of any kind. Byrsonima—a Malpighi-
aceous genus that abounds in the Amazon valley—
includes many species, all handsome little trees,
with racemes of yellow or rose-coloured flowers,
followed by small edible but rather insipid drupes.
Wier bark abounds in tannin, and is the usual
material for tanning leather at Para, as also, by
the Indians, for dyeing coarse cotton garments a
red-brown colour. Another genus— Bunchosia—
grows chiefly on the slopes of the Andes, at from
Aine NOTES OF *& BOTANISa CHAP.
7000 to gooo feet elevation, and the species are
trees of humble growth, bearing large yellowish-
green edible drupes known as Ciruelas de fraile
(Friar’s plums). In cultivation the fruits are mostly
seedless, and in that state are sometimes brought
for sale to Ambato and other towns. The seed
is described in books as poisonous, and if it be
really so, then it is the only instance, so far as I
know, of the existence of any hurtful principle in
the entire family of Malpighiads, always excepting
that of the Caapi. Yet strong poisons may lurk
undiscovered in many others of the order, which is
very large, and (the twining species especially) of
great sameness of aspect; and the closely-allied
Soapworts (Sapindacez) contain strong narcotic
poisons, especially in the genus Paullinia.
I obtained a good many pieces of stem, dried
them carefully, and packed them in a large box,
which contained botanical specimens, and dispatched
them down the river for England in March 1853.
The man who took that box and four others on
freight, in a large new boat he had built on the
Uaupés, was seized for debt when about half-way
down the Rio Negro, and his boat and all its con-
tents confiscated. My boxes were thrown aside in
a hut, with only the damp earth for floor, and re-
mained there many months, when my friend Senhor
Henrique Antonij, of Mandaos, whom I had advised
by letter of the sending-off of the boxes, heard of
the mishap, and succeeded in redeeming them and
getting them sent on to the port of Para. When
Mr. Bentham came to open them in England, he
found the contents somewhat injured by damp and
mould, and the sheets of specimens near the bottom
PAR COMICS AND STIMULANTS 423
of the boxes quite ruined. The bundle of Caapi would
presumably have quite lost its virtue from the same
cause, and I do not know that it was ever analysed
chemically ; but some portion of it should be in the
Ikew Museum at this day.
Caapi is used by all the nations on the river
Uaupés, some of whom speak languages differing
zm toto from each other, and have besides (in other
respects) widely different customs. But on the Rio
Negro, if it has ever been used, it has fallen into
disuse ; nor did I find it anywhere among nations
or tae true Carib stock, such as the Barrés;. Bani-
huas, Mandauaeas, etc., with the solitary exception
of the Tarianas, who have intruded a little way
within the river Uaupés, and have probably learnt
to use caapi from their Tucano neighbours.
When I was at the cataracts of the Orinoco, in
June 1854, I again came upon caapi, under the
same name, at an encampment of the wild Guahibos,
on the savannas of Maypures. These Indians not
only drink the infusion, like those of the Uaupés,
but also chew the dried stem, as some people do
tewacco., From them I learnt that all the native
dwellers on the rivers Meta, Vichada, Guaviare,
Sipapo, and the intervening smaller rivers, possess
caapi, and use it in precisely the same way.
In May 1857, after a sojourn of two years in the
North-Eastern Peruvian Andes, I reached, by way
of the river Pastasa, the great forest of Canelos, at
the foot of the volcanoes Cotopaxi, Llanganati, and
Tunguragua; and in the villages of Canelos and
Puca-yacu—inhabited chiefly by tribes of Zaparos—
J again saw Caapi planted. It was the identical
species of the Uaupés, but under a different name,
424 NOTES OF) BOTAMISs CHAP.
in the language of the Incas, Aya-huasca, z.e. Dead
man’s vine. The people were nearly all away at
the gold-washings, but from the Governor of Puca-
yacu I got an account of its properties coinciding
wonderfully with what I had previously learnt in
Brazil. Dr. Manuel Villavicencio, a native of Quito,
who had been some years governor of the Christian
settlements on the Napo, published the following
year, in his Geografia de la Republica del Ecuador
(New York, 1858), an interesting account of the
customs of the natives of that river, and amongst
others of their drinking the aya-huasca; but of the
plant itself he could tell no more than that it was a
liana or vine. The following is a summary of what
I learnt at Puca-yacu and from Villavicencio of the
uses and effects of the aya-huasca or caapi, as
observed on the Napo and Bombonasa.
Aya-huasca is used by the Zaparos, Angutéros,
Mazanes, and other tribes precisely as I saw caapi
used on the Uaupés, viz. as a narcotic stimulant at
their feasts. It is also drunk by the medicine-man,
when called on to adjudicate in a dispute or quarrel
—to give the proper answer to an embassy—to dis-
cover the plans of an enemy—to tell if strangers
are coming—to ascertain if wives are unfaithful—
in the case of a sick man to tell who has bewitched
him, etc.
All who have partaken of it feel first vertigo ;
then as if they rose up into the air and were float-
ing about. The Indians say they see beautiful
lakes, woods laden with fruit, birds of brilliant
plumage, etc. Soon the scene changes ;/ they see
savage beasts preparing to seize them, they can no
longer hold themselves up, but fall to the ground.
me NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 425
At this crisis the Indian wakes up from his trance,
and if he were not held down in his hammock by
force, he would spring to his feet, seize his arms,
and attack the first person who stood in his way.
Then he becomes drowsy, and finally sleeps. If
he be a medicine-man who has taken it, when he
has slept off the fumes he recalls all he saw in his
trance, and thereupon deduces the prophecy, divina-
tion, or what not required of him. Boys are not
allowed to taste aya-huasca before they reach
puberty, nor women at any age: precisely as on
the Uaupés.
Villavicencio says (0p. cz. p. 373): ‘When I
have partaken of aya-huasca, my head has immed-
ately begun to swim, then I have seemed to enter
on an aerial voyage, wherein I thought I saw the
most charming landscapes, great cities, lofty towers,
beautiful parks, and other delightful things. Then
all at once I found myself deserted in a forest and
attacked by beasts of prey, against which I tried
to defend myself. Lastly, I began to come round,
but with a feeling of excessive drowsiness, headache,
and sometimes general sa/azse.”
This is all I have seen and learnt of caapi or
aya-huasca. I regret being unable to tell what is
the peculiar narcotic principle that produces such
extraordinary effects. Opium and hemp are its
most obvious analogues, but caapi would seem to
operate on the nervous system far more rapidly and
violently than either. Some traveller who may
follow my steps, with greater resources at his com-
mand, will, it is to be hoped, be able to bring away
materials adequate for the complete analysis of this
curious plant.
426 NOTES OF A BOTANIST na
Niopo Snuff and the Mode of using tt
I]. PiprapENIA Nriopo, Humboldt
Synonyms—Acacia? Niopfo, Humb., Rel Ast. uu. p. 620;
ejusdem Vov. Gen. Amer. vi. p. 282 ; DC. roti
Inga Niopo, Willd.
Description.—Tree, 50 feet by 2 feet, with muricated bark,
otherwise unarmed. Leaves bipinnate ; pinnz twenty-four pairs ;
pinnules very numerous, minute, linear, mucronato-apiculate,
ciliated, sparsely sub-pubescent. An oblong gland on petiole
above base ; another between terminal pinnz. Racemes axillary
and terminal ; pedicels twin, each bearing a small globose head
of white flowers. Corolla slightly emersed from 5-angled calyx.
Stamens to; anthers tipped with a gland. Pod linear, sub-com-
pressed, apiculate, 7—-12-seeded, sub-constricted between seeds.
Seeds flattish, green.
Habitat.—In the drier forests of the Amazon, and along its
tributaries, both northern and southern; on the Rio Negro,
throughout its course ; also at the cataracts of the Orinoco ; both
wild and planted near villages. (Santarem, fl. Amazonum, Spruce,
Exsicc. No. 828, etiam Janauari, fl. Negro, No. 1786.) Native
names: Parica in Brazil; Nidpo in Venezuela.
We owe our first knowledge of Niopo snuff, and
of the tree producing it, to Humboldt and Bonpland,
whose brief account of it is thus condensed by
Kunth: “Ex seminibus tritis calci vivae admixtis
fit tabacum nobile quo Indi Otomacos et Guajibos
utuntur” (Sywopszs, iv. p. 20). -In they modern
niopo, as I saw it prepared by the Guahibos them-
selves, there is no admixture of quicklime, and that
is the sole difference. My specimens of the leaves,
flowers, and fruit agree so well with Kunth’s de-
scription of Acacia Niopo that I cannot doubt their
being the same species; especially as I have traced
the tree all the way from the Amazon to the Orinoco,
and found it everywhere identical, although it bears
a different name on the two rivers, as is commonly
the case where the same plant or animal occurs on
ut
Pa eC OPRICS AND STIMULANTS 427
both. Mr. Bentham believes my plant to be the
old Mimosa peregrina of Linneeus (Acacza peregrina,
Willd.) ; and if both opinions be correct, then the
species must be called Piptadenza peregrina (L.),
Benth. ; and Acacza Niopo, Humb., will stand as a
synonym.
I first gathered specimens of the Parica (or
Niopo) tree in 1850, near Santarem, at the junction
of the Tapajoz and Amazon, where it had appar-
emily been planted. In the following year. I
gathered it on the little river Jauauari—one of the
lower tributaries of the Rio Negro—where it was
certainly wild. But I did not see the snuff actually
prepared from the seeds and in use until June 1854,
at the cataracts of the Orinoco. A wandering horde
of Guahibo Indians, from the river Meta, was en-
camped on the savannas of Maypures, and on a
visit to their camp I saw an old man grinding
Niopo seeds, and purchased of him his apparatus
for making and taking the snuff, which is now in
the Museum of Vegetable Products at Kew. I
proceed to describe both processes.
The seeds being first roasted, are powdered ona
wooden platter, nearly the shape of a watch-glass,
but rather longer than broad (94 inches by 8 inches).
It is held on the knee by a broad thin handle, which
is grasped in the left hand, while the fingers of the
right hold a small spatula or pestle of the hard
wood of the Palo de arco (Tecome sp.) with which
the seeds are crushed.
The snuff is kept in a mull made of a bit of the
leg-bone of the jaguar, closed at one end with pitch,
and at the other end stopped with a cork of marima
bark. It hangs around the neck, and from it are
suspended a few odoriferous rhizomes of a sedge
(Kyllingia odorata). Rhizomes of the same sedge,
or of an allied species, are in use among the Indians
throughout the Amazon and Orinoco. They render
the wearer secure from the bad wish and evil eye
of his enemies.
For taking the snuff they use an apparatus made
of the leg-bones of herons or other long-shanked birds
put together in the shape of the letter Y, or some-
thing like a tuning-fork, and the two upper tubes are
tipped with small black perforated knobs (the endo-
carps of a palm). The lower tube being inserted
in the snuff-box and the knobs in the nostrils, the
snuff is forcibly inhaled, with the effect of thoroughly
narcotising a novice, or indeed a practised hand,
if taken in sufficient quantity ; but this endures
only a few minutes, and is followed by a soothing
influence, which is more lasting.
The Guahibo had a bit of caapi hung from his
neck, along with the snuff-box, and as he ground
his niopo he every now and then tore off a strip of
caapi with his teeth and chewed it with evident
satisfaction. ‘With a chew of caapi and a pinch
of niopo,” said he, in his broken Spanish, “one feels
sogood! Nohunger—nothirst—no tired!” From
the same man I learnt that caapi and niopo were
used by all the nations on the upper tributaries of
the Orinoco, z.¢. on the Guaviare, Vichada, Meta,
Sipapo, ete.
I had previously (in 1851) purchased of a Brazilian
trader at Mandaos an apparatus for taking niopo
snuff rather different from that of the Guahibos.
He had brought it from the river Purus, where it
had been used by the Catauixt Indians. My note
Pee NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 4209
on it (as taken down from his account) is as
follows :— ‘
The Catauixis use niopo snuff as a narcotic
stimulant, precisely as the Guahibos of Venezuela,
and as the Muras and other nations of the Amazon,
where it is called parica. For absorbing parica
by the nose, a bent tube is made of a bird’s shank-
bone, cut in two, and the pieces joined by wrap-
ping, at such an angle that one end being applied
to the mouth, the other reaches the nostrils. A
portion of snuff is then put into the tube and blown
with great force up the nose. A clyster-pipe is made,
on the same principle, of the long shank-bone of
the tuyuyti (Afycterta americana). The effect of
parica, taken as snuff, is to speedily induce a sort
of intoxication, resembling in its symptoms (as
described to me in this instance) that produced by
the fungus Amanita muscaria. Taken in injection,
it is a purge, more or less violent according to the
dose.- When the Catauixi is about to set forth on
the chase, he takes a small injection of parica, and
administers another to his dog, the effect on both
being (it is said) to clear their vision and render
them more alert !
Herndon (Valley of the Amazon, p. 318) gives
the following account of the use of parica among
the Mundructis, on the river Tapajoz, which he
derived from an intelligent Frenchman (M. Maugin)
who had traded among them. They powder the
seeds of parica, make the powder into a paste, and
repulverise a portion whenever they want to take
it as snuff. Two quills of the royal heron, joined
side by side, make a double tube, which is applied
to the nostrils and the powder snuffed up with
430 NOTES OF A BOTANITS® CHAP.
a strong inspiration. M. Maugin thus describes
its effects on an Indian whom he saw take it.
‘“His eyes started from his head, his mouth con-
tracted, his limbs trembled. It was fearful to see
him. He was obliged to sit down or he would
have fallen. He was drunk, but only for about
five minutes; he was then gayer.”
“ WMedtcine-Men’ and thetr Customs
Among the native tribes of the Uaupés and of
the upper tributaries of the Orinoco, niopo or
parica is the chief curative agent. When the payé
is called in to treat a patient, he first snuffs up his
nose such a quantity of parica as suffices to throw
him into a sort of ecstasy, wherein he professes to
divine the nature of the evil wish which has caused
the sickness, and to gather force to counteract it.
He next lights a very thick cigar of tobacco, in-
hales a quantity of smoke, and puffs it out over the
sick man, over the hammock in which he is laid,
and over everything he habitually uses, but espe-
cially over the-food he is to eat. This idene seme
payé professes to suck out the ill, by applying his
mouth to the seat of pain, or aS near to 4t as
practicable ; and he spits out the morbid matter—
most likely tobacco or coca juice—and sometimes
produces from his mouth thorns and other sub-
stances, previously hidden there, but which he
pretends to have extracted from the sick man’s
body. If the sickness ends fatally, he denounces
the enemy whose evil wish has caused it, and not
infrequently it 1s some rival payé, of the same or
another nation. Hence I was told that the payés
mee NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 431
never travel without an accompaniment of at least
four or five well-armed men, their lives being in
continual jeopardy from such denunciations.
I have never been so fortunate as to see a
genuine payé at work. Among the civilised Indians
the Christian padre has supplanted the pagan payé,
who has besides been discountenanced and perse-
cuted by the civil authorities; so that if any now
exist, he must exercise his office in secret. With
the native and still unchristianised tribes I have for
the most part held only passing intercourse during
some of my voyages. Once I lived for seven
months at a time among them, on the river Uaupés,
iateeven there-l failed.to catch a payé. When |
was exploring the Jauarité cataracts on that river,
and was the guest of Uiaca, the venerable chief of
the Tucano nation, news came to the malléca one
afternoon that a famous payé, from a long way up
river, would arrive that night and remain until next
day, and I congratulated myself on so fine a
chance of getting to know some of the secrets of
bist medicine. Ele did not reach the port until
IO P.M., and when he learnt that there was a white
payé (meaning myself) in the village, he and his
attendants immediately threw back into the canoe
his goods, which they had begun to disembark,
and resumed their dangerous voyage down the river
in the night-time. I was told he had with him
several palm-leaf boxes, containing his apparatus.
(There is a similar box now in the Kew Museum,
sent by me from the Uaupeés.) 1 could only regret
that his dread of a supposed rival had prevented
the interview which to me would have been full of
interest ;.the more so as I was prepared to barter
432 NOTES OF A BOTANIST oa.
with him forethe whole of his materia medica, if my
stock-in-trade would have sufficed.
Rochefort (H/estozre Naturelle et Morale des Isles
Antilles, Rotterdam, 1665), says: “ Their Boyés or
medicine-men practise both medicine and devilry.
They are resorted to: 1, to cause punishment to
fallon some one who has wronged or injured the
applicant; 2, to cure some disease + 3) tom@icuell
the advent of a war; 4, to drive out the Maboya or
Eyal spirit: 19.247 2).
Their functions are very much the same at the
present day among the native tribes of the main-
land as they were two or three hundred years ago
in the isles of the Caribbean Sea. I propege;sm
what follows, to review briefly the use made by the
payes of their materia medica in the treatment of
disease.
The apparatus and materia medica of the medi-
cine-men of the region lying adjacent to the Upper
Rio Negro and Orinoco, and extending thence
westward to the Andes, are chiefly the following :—
The Maraca or Rattle.
Tobacco, juice and smoke.
Niopo (or Parica), powdered seeds in snuff.
Caapi (or Aya-huasca), stems in infusion.
1. Zhe Maraca or Rattle.—This is the hard
globose or oval pericarp of the Cvescentia Cuzjete, or
sometimes of a gourd, tastefully engraved and per-
forated in geometrical or fantastic designs, and the
lines usually coloured. To make it rattle, a few
small bright-red or red-and-black beans are put
into it; those most used on the Uaupes are seeds
of Batesta erythrosperma (Spruce) and of Ormosia
coccinea (Jack). I have seen the maraca used in
xxv NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 433
dances, but it is also employed by the payés in
their divinations, and Bancroft’s account of its use
in Guayana corresponds so nearly with what was
told to me on the Uaupés, that I cannot do better
than transcribe it here.
“The medicine-men, called Peiis [Stedman says
Peiis or Pagayers], unite in themselves the sacer-
dotal and medicinal functions. One of the imple-
ments of the peiit is a hollowed calabash (cuya)
through the centre of which an axis is passed
projecting about a foot on each side, the thick end
forming a handle, the thin end decorated with
feathers; it is also carved and painted and per-
forated with small holes—some long, some round—
and several quartz pebbles and red-and-black beans
are put inside it, so that it forms a rattle. When
the pei is called to a patient, he begins his exorcism
apemone. the liohts being put out and he-left
alone with the patient. He rattles his maraca by
turning it slowly round, singing at the same time a
supplication to the Yawahoo. This goes on for say
a couple’ of hours, when the peti is heard ton-
versing with the Yawahoo—at least there are two
distinct voices. Afterwards the peli makes a report
in an ambiguous style, on what will be the event of
Biewcisorder, The exorcisms are repeated every
night until after a favourable turn, when the peli
pretends to extract the cause of the disorder by
sucking the part affected, after which he pulls out
of his mouth fish-bones, thorns, snake’s teeth, or
some such substance, which he has before concealed
therein, but pretends to have been maliciously con-
veyed into the affected part by the Yawahoo. The
patient then fancies himself cured, and the influence
MOL. Il 2 F
A434 | NOTES OF A BOTANIS# CHAP.
of imagination helps his recovery. If the patient
dies, the peli attributes it either to the implacable
Yawahoo or to the influence of some inimical pei.”
(An Essay on the fustory of Guayana, by Dr.
Edward Bancroft, 1769, p. 310.)
Long. before Bancroft’s time the usemor Gime
maraca and of tobacco by Brazilian payés was
described by Thevet, as follows: ‘‘ Existimant enim,
cum hunc fructum (quem Maraka et Tamaraka
nuncupant) manibus pertractant, crepitantemque
ob Mayzi grana injecta audiunt, cum suo se Toupan,
id est, Deo sermones conferre atque ab eo quodam
-responsa accipere, sic a suis Paygi (divinatorum
genus est, qui suffitu herbae Petun, et quibusdam
obmurmurationibus iUlorum Tamaraka divinam
facultatem attribuunt tribuere perhibent) persuasi.” *
The accounts given by the early missionaries of
the doings of the payés are seldom full or reliable.
Those pious men regarded them as the great
obstacle to the reception of the Christian faith by
the natives, and always wrote of them with a
certain impatience and disgust, under the belief (no
doubt sincere) that the payes had direct dealings
with the devil. But the cure of disease by suction
is alluded to by missionaries in every part of South
America. In the Lettres Edifiantes et Curteuses,
consisting of selections from the correspondence of
missionaries in various heathen countries, published
with the sanction of the holy see, there is this
note about the medicine-men of the Moxos Indians:
“T’unique soulagement quils se procurent dans
1 Thevetus, as quoted by Chusius, in Avomatum et Stmplictum aliquot. . .
Historia. Auctore Garcia ab Horto, Medico Lusitanico. Ed. Cliusio.
Antverpiz, 1579.
meee NA RCOVICS AND STIMULANTS 435
leurs maladies, consiste a appeler certains enchan-
teurs, quils s’imaginent avoir recu un pouvoir
particulier de les guérir ; ces charlatans vont trouver
les malades, récitent sur eux quelque priere super-
stitieuse, leur promettent de jefiner pour leur
guérison, et de prendre un certain nombre de fois
par jour du tabac en fumée; ou bien, ce qui est une
insigne faveur, ils sucent la partie mal affectee,
apres quoi ils se retirent, a condition quon leur
payera libéralement ces sortes de services” (tome
Wiieeees). ind at p. 339 of the same volume,
speaking of the enchanters of the Chiquitos, it is
eMcbe ise micdecin suce ensuite la partie mal
affectée, et au bout de quelque temps il jette par la
bouche une matiére noire: Voila, dit-il, le venin
que jal tire de votre corps.”
It is not necessary to be a payé to “‘suck out a
pain.’ Among the Barrés it is commonly practised,
and I have seen a fellow hang on to his comrade’s
shoulder for half an hour together, “sucking out
the rheumatism.” But as they know the whites
ridicule the practice, they avoid as much as possible
beme surprised in it. Formerly they had pro-
fessional chupadores or suckers; but in my time
there were none such, besides the payés, who were
found only among the unchristianised tribes.
2. Lobacco.—TVhis was possibly the first narcotic
ever used in South America, and is likely to be the
last. In one form or another it is a prime in-
eredient in the medicine of the payés. Rochefort
says: ‘Each Boye has his familiar demon, whom
he evoques by a chant, accompanied by the smoke
of tobacco, whose perfume is supposed to be
aunactive to devils (/oc. czt: p. 473). “And it is
436 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
essential to the making of payés. Bancroft says:
“The order of Peiis is inherited by the eldest sons.
A young Peli is initiated with superstitious cere-
monies lasting several weeks. Among other things,
he is dosed with tobacco till it no longer operates
as an emetic: (/ogvaza):
Tobacco-smoke is blown on the sick person
by the payeé in almost all methods of cure, whether
the maraca, niopo, or caapi be the primary agent.
In lieu of the two latter it would seem that in some
nations the enchanters narcotised themselves by
chewing tobacco and swallowing the juice. The
large cigar used on the Uaupés is smoked in the
ordinary way, and the smoke blown from the
mouth; but in the country bordering the Pacific
coast of Equatorial America the cigar—two or
three feet long, but slenderer than) that cite
Uaupes—was held in the mouth at the lighted end,
and the smoke blown from the opposite end upon
the sick person, or, at a feast, in the faces of the
guests, whereof Wafer has an amusing account and
a rude picture (p. 327, oc. cit.). He callesthe ayes
pawawers, evidently the same name, with a merely
dialectic difference. It is curious that at the present
day the Indians and negroes along that coast fre-
quently hold the lighted end of a cigar in their
mouths, as any one who has sojourned at Panama or
Guayaquil may have observed.
The uses of niopo (or parica) and of caapi (or
aya-huasca) I have already indicated above. The
former is the chief ‘‘ medicine” of the payés on the
affluents of the Amazon, both northern and southern,
and on the Orinoco; but the latter in the roots of
the Equatorial Andes. I have not learnt that they
fee NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 437
are ever used in conjunction, except as an occasional
stimulant, and in small quantity.
On Spirits or Demons among the [Indians
I have never heard any mention among the
native races with whom I have sojourned of a
Spirit or Demon the payé was supposed to invoke,
but there has been so much testimony to that effect,
that it can hardly fail to be true. This demon—
the Maboya of the Antilles, the Yawahoo of
Guayana (according to Bancroft and Stedman)—is
surely the Yamadu of the Casiquiari and Alto
Orinoco. But when I made inquiry about the
latter, I was always assured that it had a bodily,
and not merely a ghostly existence. It is, in fact,
a Wild Man of the Woods or Forest Devil—the
Curupira or Diabo do mato of the Amazon, the
Munyia of the eastern foot of the Equatorial Andes
—a little hairy man, not more than four to five feet
high, but so strong and wiry that no single Indian
can cope with him. His great peculiarity is that,
although his tracks are often met with, no one can
tell which way he has gone. Either, as on some
parts of the Amazon, he has a perfectly human foot,
but set on the contrary way; or else, as on the
Casiquiari, Uaupés, Napo, etc., he has two heels on
each foot and never a toe. This little devil plays
many pranks, of which the most serious is his
carrying off women who venture alone into the
forest; but he never attacks two people together,
so that in some parts a man or woman will take a
little child into the forest rather than go alone. If
an Indian loses his way in the forest, he blames the
438 NOTES OF A BOTAN@S@ lee
Curupira, and to find it again he twists a liana into
a ring—or, if he be a Christian, into the form of a
cross—in such a way that the points of the liana
are completely hidden; he then throws it behind
him, taking care not to look which way it goes, and
afterwards picks it up and follows the direction in
which it has fallen. I cannot here recount all the
tales | have heard about this mysterious being, but
I suppose they point to the former existence in the
regions of some homo primordialis, and that the
fact has come down by tradition from untold ages,
coupled with the belief that the species is even yet
not extinct. Meanwhile, until the animal, or its
skeleton, be found—which I do not look on as
impossible—I suppose we must consider the Curu-
pira, or Munyia, or Yamadu, the analogue of the
Barghaist of the north of England and Scotland,
the Loup-garou of France, the Lobishomem of
Portugal, and other similar mythical creatures.
A Strange Occurrence and its Explanation
In my voyage to the Upper Orinoco, by way of
the Casiquiari, in 1853-54, when the river was so
low at Christmas that | had great difficulty in getting
my piragoa up as far as Esmeralda, and it was
quite impossible to ascend farther, as I had at first
intended, I afterwards explored its northern tribu-
tary, the Cunucuntima, and re-entered the Casiquiari,
intending to go as far down as Lake Vasiva. The
dry season should have held all through the months
of January and February, and Vasiva was described
to me as having at that time broad sandy beaches,
sprinkled with curious little plants, and bordered
fe NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 439
with flowering bushes, so that I reasonably hoped
to make a fine collection there. But the first night
of our downward voyage (Jan. 7) the rains came
on, out of their time, and continued daily for many
days, until the river had risen to its winter level,
and the forest-margin was mostly flooded. There
are only two small pueblos on the Casiquiari above
the outlet of Lake Vasiva, and at the lower of these
I halted nine days, hoping the floods might subside.
This pueblo was of only recent formation, and was
peopled by Pacimonari Indians, who had named it
Yamadu-bani, that is, Wild Man’s Land, because the
adjacent forests were said to be haunted by the
Yamadu. I explored them as much as the heavy
rains permitted, and never encountered any Yamadu;
but on the very first day I was myself taken for it
by two girls whom I met suddenly at the turning of
a large buttressed tree, on a forest trail, and who
threw down their baskets, laden with manioc, and
fled affrighted. At length the weather seemed to
take up a little, although the river was still high,
and I determined to go on to Vasiva. We accord-
ingly re-embarked early on the 21st, and eight oars,
aided by a strong current, brought us to the lake at
4 p.M.; but in vain we coasted along to find a bit of
dry land whereon to encamp, for the trees and
bushes were all in water up to 4 or 5 feet; so that
we had to return to the narrow winding channel
forming the outlet of the lake, where there was a
scanty strip of terra firme and a rancho left by a
party that had gathered turtles’ eggs there the
previous year. Here we remained four days, but
the weather was dreadfully rainy, the sun never
once appeared, and all | could do was to creep
4.40 NOTES OF A BOTANIST one:
about the margin of the lake and up its tributary
creeks in my curiara, and gather specimens of the few
trees that were in flower. On the 22nd, at 4 P.M.,
when we were cooking our dinner, we were startled
by hearing the report of a musket in the forest on
the opposite bank of the river, there not more than
80 yards wide. It is scarcely possible to conceive
the strangeness of such a sound in savage, desolate
forests which scarcely any human being could pene-
trate, especially- one accustomed to firearam 2a
region of at least 10,000 square miles, of which we
were the centre, had scarcely 400 inhabitants, and
those chiefly half-wild Indians, whose weapon was
the blowing-cane. The nearest settlement was that
of Yamdadu-bani, but we knew that none of their
hunting tracks extended to Vasiva; and the half-
dozen adult males had neither guns nor ammunition
when we left them only the day before. There had
been no inhabitants on Vasiva for very many years,
and there were no traders or other travellers on the
Casiquiar1 at that season beside ourselves. I was
completely puzzled. The report was mot vexiciy
like that of either musket or rifle, nor was it any
one of the accustomed sounds which at rare in-
tervals break the silence of those vast solitudes,
and with which I had become familiar. The crash
of a huge tree falling from sheer age—the explosion,
like distant cannon, of an old hollow Sassafras or
Capivi tree, burst by the balsam accumulated in the
cavity—the solitary thunderclap in an apparently
cloudless sky—the roar of cataracts, and of the
approaching hurricane—all these sounds I had
previously heard, and had learnt to distinguish.
My Indians, however, although even more startled
eee NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 441
than myself, soon made up their minds about the
origin of the unwonted sound. It was the Yamadu,
an propria persona, hunting near us, and he would
infallibly send us terrible rain or some _ other
calamity to warn us off his territory. The soughing
of the approaching tempest was already heard, and
presently it burst upon us, with thunder and
lightning and deluging rain that lasted until mid-
night. The two following days were dull and
dropping, and a little later on in the day—that is,
towards nightfall—we each day heard a single
report, not quite so near at hand, and then we had
heavy rain from 7 p.m. throughout the night. My
people became silent and gloomy, were afraid, they
said, to hunt or fish, and I believe if I had re-
mained another night would have every one deserted
Mey 20,10 the alternoon of.the 25th I gave the
order for resuming our voyage down the Casiquiari,
to their very great content. When I came on deck
shortly afterwards to see if everything was in
readiness for starting, I saw some of the men in a
tree that overhung our encampment, fastening to
the branches a couple of scarecrows they had rigged
up out of old shirts and trousers. ‘‘ What does this
mean, Antonio?” said I to one of them who was
fonder talking to me in Lingua Tupi. . ‘‘ YAane-
fane@aua (our effigies), said-he. ‘Oh, I see,” said
ioe ourthini to cheat the Yamadu. - Seeing us
up the tree, he will fancy we are still here, and will
not pursue us down the river!” But I had a quiet
inmeiteover itiin the recesses of my cabin. It
reminded me of a fellow pursued by a bull, who
throws off hat and coat to detain the savage brute
until he himself can gain a place of safety.
442 NOTES OF A BOTANIST a
For years afterwards the solitary shots in the
sombre forests of Lake Vasiva used to haunt my
memory and my dreams. ‘They were as mysterious
to me, although not so alarming, as the single foot-
print was to Robinson Crusoe. My ears were
always open to some repetition of the sound which
might lead to detecting its origin. In April 1857,
I was on my voyage up the lonely Pastasa, at the
eastern foot of the Andes. My companions were
two Spaniards, two whitish lads who acted as our
servants, and fourteen Cucama Indians who paddled
our two canoes. Five months before, there had
been an uprising of the savage Jibaros and Huam-
bisas, who had laid waste the Christian villages on
the Amazon, below the Pongo de Manseriche, and
the only village (Santander) on the Lower Pastasa.
We travelled, therefore, in constant risk of being
attacked, and were on the alert day and night.
The Indians would never go on shore to cook
until we had first landed with our arms and ascer-
tained that the adjacent forest was clear. One
morning we had cooked our breakfast, and were
just squatting down, Turkish fashion, around the
steaming pots, when what sounded like a gunshot—
quite near—brought us all to our feet. But the
Jibaros, we knew, had no firearms, and it at once
struck me that it was the identical sound heard on
Lake Vasiva. ‘“‘What and where is that?’ 2 ex.
claimed. “I will take you straight to it, if you
like,” said the old pilot of my canoe; and accepting
his offer, | plunged into the bush with him, and in
three minutes reached a heap of debris, like a huge
haycock, the remains of a decayed Palm-trunk
whose sudden fall it was that had startled us. It
= NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 443
Baoebeen a very tall, stout Palm,-30 or 100 feet
high at the least. When the vitality of a Palm is
exhausted, the crown of fronds first withers and
falls, and then the soft interior of the trunk gradu-
ally rots and is eaten away by termites until nothing
isetert but a thin-shell: and when that can no
longer bear its own weight, it collapses and breaks
up in an instant, with a crash very like a musket-
shot.?
A few weeks later, | had to make my way on
foot through the forest of Canelos, and it sometimes
happened that when we had to cook our supper,
after a day of soaking rain, we could find no wood
that would burn but these shells of Palm-trunks.
(The Palm was the curious Wettonza Maynensts,
which abounded there.) A single stroke of a
cutlass would often suffice to cause them to collapse
and fall, in a mass of dust and splinters, repeating
each time the report of the weapon of the mysterious
hunter of Vasiva, and not without risk to the operator
of being buried in the ruins.
Sometimes when I have been deep in the virgin
forest, and could not see through the overarching
foliage any sign of rain in the sky, or was heedless
of it—when not a sound or a breath of air disturbed
the solemn calm and stillness—a shiver would all
at once pass through the tree-tops, and yet no wind
- at all be sensible below. Then all would be still
again, and it was not until a few minutes later that
a distant soughing announced the coming tempest.
The preliminary shudder would bring down dead
leaves and twigs, and such a one might have
1 This strange sound is briefly described in Spruce’s Journal. See vol. i.
Pp 423.
444 NOTES OF A BOTANTS# CHAP.
prostrated the decayed Palm on Lake Vasiva.
Other dead Palms might fall when the full force of
the squall caught them, but the crash of their fall
would be drowned in the general roar of the
tempest, and especially in the continuous roll of
the thunder. The truth seems to bemtian sie 1
nearly always during a storm such Palms do fall,
and that their prostration during a season of calm
is the rarest possible occurrence; which accounts
for my having passed four years and a half in the
forest before I ever heard it, and for others having
lived the best part of their lives there either with-
out noticing it, or without caring to ascertain the
origin of the sound caused by it. It hardly needs
mention that perfectly vigorous Palm trees, and
trees of all kinds, may fall during a violent storm.
Hurricanes that open out long lanes in the forest
are only too frequent towards the sources of the
Orinoco, but are exceedingly rare on and near tite
Amazon.
Rarity of Curative Drugs among the Indigenes
From what was said above, it will have been
seen that, although the medicine-man doses himself
with powerful narcotics, no drug whatever is
administered to the patient; nor could I learn that
it was ever done by a “regular practitioner.” The
Indians have a few household remedies, but by far
the greater portion of these have come into use
since tne advent of the white man from Europe
and the negro from Africa. Von Martius remarks
nearly the same thing in the introduction to his
Systema Materiae Medicae vegetabilis Brasthensts
xxv NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 445
(1843, p. xvii.): “At valde fallerentur, qui putarent,
Brasiliae plantas medicas omnes per autochthones
colonis esse oblatas ; potius multa me movent, ut
dicam, totidem, quae nunc adhibentur, a nigris et
albis incolis esse detectas et usu cognatas, quot ab
mls, = -Of external applications, | have seen only
the following. For a wound or bruise or swelling,
the milky juice of some tree is spread thick on the
skin, where it hardens into a sort of plaster, and
is allowed to remain“ on until it falls of itself.
Almost any milky tree may serve, if the juice be not
acrid; but the Heveas (India-rubbers), Sapotads,
and some Clusiads are preferred. Such a plaster
has sometimes an excellent effect in protecting the
injured part from the external air.
#t) Parapoto, in the Eastern Peruvian Andes,
where the people are all Christians, and some of
them almost pure white, where there are churches
and priests and schools, such medicine as they have
is little more than necromantic practices of their
curanderos. In all sicknesses the first curative
operation is to sobar el espanto (rub out the fright),
which is done thus: Chew a piece of the gum-resin
galled “sonitonio, place it in the hollow of the
hand, and with it rub the legs of the sick person,
from the knees downwards, and end by whistling
between all the toes. There are other ridiculous
and useless operations, but in some cases the
rubbing is really beneficial, Take this mode of
‘‘rubbing out colic” as an example. Put a little
fowl’s grease in the hand, and rub it over the body
of the patient, round and round, over the course
of the colon, making every now and then a forcible
twist and pressure on the navel, para soltar el
446 NOTES* OF A’ BOT ANIS® CHAP.
empacho (to loosen the indigestion). Rubbing with
a dry hand is still better, and for lumbago and other
forms of rheumatism has sometimes an excellent
effect. There are persons who, by long practice,
acquire what is called ‘‘a good hand,” and are much
sought after as sobadores or shampooers.
Nervous Stimulants used by the Indians
Séveral. plants are used in South Amenmeanas
nervous stimulants, and all are more or less narcotic.
Of these, the foremost place must be assigned to
Erythroxylon Coca (Lam.)—Coca of the Peruvians,
Ipadu of the Brazilians. Of its use in Peru, chiefly
by miners and cargueros, Poeppig has already given
an excellent account, . There the emtise fami
chewed, with a small admixture of lime. But in
North Brazil, where also its use is almost universal,
I have always seen it used in powder. The plant
itself, a slender shrub, with leaves not unlike tea-
leaves, except that they are entire at the margins,
is frequently planted near houses. In Peru, as is
well known, there are large plantations of it, called
cocales. -I have gathered it truly wild ompiime
rocky banks of the Rio Negro; near Veme in
Venezuela (hb. 3565); and an Erythroxylon (Z.
cataractarum, n. sp. hb. 2614), which I found grow-
ing abundantly on rocks in the cataracts of the
Paapuris, a tributary of the Uaupés, which has
small dark-green leaves only an inch and a half
long, is considered by Mr. Bentham a variety of
the same species.
In January 1851 I saw ipadu prepared and used
on the small river Jauauari, near the mouth of the
= NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 447
Rio Negro, and I sent a quantity of it to Kew
for analysis. My account of it was published in
Hookers Journal of Botany for July 1853, and
I here reproduce it. The leaves of ipadti are pulled
off the branches, one by one, and roasted on the
mandiocca-oven, then pounded in a cylindrical
mortar, 5 or 6 feet in height, made of-the lower
part of the trunk of the Pupunha or Peach Palm
(Guzlielmia speciosa), the hard root forming the
- base and the soft inside being: scooped. out. It
is made of -this excessive length because of the
impalpable nature of the powder, which would
otherwise fly up and choke the operator; and it is
buried a sufficient depth in the ground to allow of
its being easily worked. The pestle is of propor-
tionate length, and is made of any hard wood.
When the leaves are sufficiently pounded, the
powder is taken out with a small cuya fastened to
the end of an arrow. A small quantity of tapioca,
in powder, is mixed with it to give it consistency,
and it is usual to add pounded ashes of Imba-uba
or Drum tree (Cecropia peltata), which are saline
and antiseptic. With a chew of ipadu in his cheek,
renewed at intervals of a few hours, an Indian will
go for days without food and sleep.
In April 1852 I assisted, much against my will,
at an Indian feast in a little rocky island at the
leer ot. the falls of the Rio Negro; for I had
“gone down the falls to have three or four days’
herborising, and I found my host—the pilot of the
cataracts—engaged in the festivities, which neither
he nor my man would leave until the last drop of
cauim (coarse cane- or plantain-spirit) was consumed.
During the two days the feast lasted I was nearly
448 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
famished, for, although there was food, nobody
would cook it, and the guests sustained themselves
entirely on cauim and ipadu. At short intervals,
ipadu was handed round in a large calabash, with
a tablespoon, for each one to help himself, the
customary dose being a couple of spoonfuls. After
each dose they passed some minutes without
opening their mouths, adjusting the ipadu in the
recesses of their cheeks and inhaling its delightful
influences. I could scarcely resist laughing at
their swollen cheeks and grave looks during these
intervals of silence, which, however, had two or
three times the excellent effect of eheckiaa. an
incipient quarrel. The ipadu is not sucked, but
allowed to find its way insensibly into the stomach
along with the saliva. I tried a spoonful twice,
but it had little effect on me, and assuredly did not
render me insensible to the calls of hunger, although
it did in some measure to those of sleep. It had
very little of either smell or taste; andi ioeen
reminded me of weak tincture of henbane. I could
never make out that the habitual use of ipadu had
any ill results on the Rio Negro; but in Peru its
excessive use is said to seriously injure the coats
of the stomach, an effect probably owing to the
lime taken along with it.
The Use of Guarané as a Tontc
Another powerful nervous tonic and subnarcotic
is Cupana or guarana, which is prepared from the
seed of a twining plant of the family of Sapindacee.
The first definite information about it was obtained
by Humboldt and Bonpland in the south of
xxv NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 449
Venezuela. Humboldt says: ‘‘A missionary seldom
travels without being provided with some prepared
seeds of the Cupdna. The Indians scrape the
seeds, mix them with flour of cassava, envelop the
mass in plantain-leaves, and set it to ferment in
water, till it acquires a saffron-yellow colour. This
yellow paste, dried in the sun and diluted in water,
is taken in the morning as a kind of tea. This
beverage is bitter and stomachic, but appeared to
me to have a very disagreeable taste.” (Personal
Narrative, v. 278, Miss Williams's translation. )
It was at Javita, near the head of the Atabapo,
that Humboldt made trial of cupana. I first tasted
the cold infusion, prepared nearly in the same way,
except that no cassava had been added to the grated
seeds, I think at Tomo, on the Guainia, only two
days’ journey from Javita, in 1853; and I after-
wards drank it frequently on the Atabapo and
Orinoco, where the inhabitants still take it com-
monly the first thing in a morning, on quitting their
hammocks, and consider it a preservative against
the malignant bilious fevers which are the scourge
of that region. It is as bitter as rhubarb, and is
always drunk unsweetened, so that at first one finds
it absolutely repulsive ; but it soon ceases to be so,
and those who use it habitually get to like it much,
and to find it almost a necessary of life. When
the bowels are relaxed and coffee taken in the
morning, fasting excites too much peristaltic action,
then cupana is decidedly preferable, for it is less
irritating than coffee and has quite the same
stimulating effect on the nervous system.
Long before I saw cupana in Venezuela—indeed,
ever since the end of 1849—I had been familiar with
VOL. 1 | 2G
450 NOTES OF A BOTANISD Sa
it in Brazil, but under another name and prepared
in a different way. There it is called guarana, and
is largely cultivated in the mid-Amazon region,
especially on the river Mauhés, which is a little
west of the Tapajoz, whence it is exported to all
other parts of Brazil.. Single plants Git imay
be seen in gardens and rogas all the way up the
Amazon, as far as to the Peruvian frontier; and
throughout the Rio Negro. Martius’s excellent
account of the Guarana of the Mauhés has been
translated by Mr. Bentham in Hooker’s Journal of
Botany for July 1851. Martius called the plant
Paullinia sorbitis, apparently not suspecting it to
be the same as Humboldt’s Paullinia Cupana ; yet
the two are absolutely identical, and Humboldt’s
name, being the elder, must stand.
The specimens distributed by Mr. Bentham in
my Plantae Exsiccatae (No. 2055) were gathered
at Uanauaca, a farm on the Rio Negro, a little
below the cataracts. I subjoin the brief description
I drew up on the spot.
PAULLINIA Cupana, H. B. K., ou. Gen. Amery. pair igs
DC. Padi Nn 0O >
Synon. Paullinia sorbilis, Mart., Rezse, il. p. 1098; ejusdem
Syst. Mat. Med. Brasil. p. 59; Th. Mart. in Buchnersegiez.
a. PAATMNS SX) 03 70:
Description.—Stout woody twiner, kept down in cultivation to
the size of a compact currant bush. Ramuli and petioles sub-
pubescent. Leaves alternate, pinnate; leaflets two and a half
pairs, 5% x 22 inches, oval, sub-acuminate, grossly and obtusely
serrate, the apical tooth retuse, nearly smooth. Racemes axillary,
with small white flowers in stalked clusters. Fruit (capsule)
yellow, passing to red at the top, obovato-pyriform, tapering below
into long neck (quasi-stipitate), at apex shortly rostrate, 17% inch
long (neck 2 inch, beak 4 inch); pericarp thinnish, soft, glabrous
externally, densely tomentose on the inner surface, 3-valved,
but dehiscing along only two of the sutures, the third remaining
closed, by abortion t1-celled, 1-seeded. Seed ovato-globose,
wee NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 451
1* inch in diameter, black, polished, nearly half-immersed in a
cupuliform white aril, with undulato-truncate mouth, which is
seated on an obconical torus.
Humboldt’s description of his Paulina Cupana
(Zoc. c2t.) tallies with the above as to number, form,
and cutting of leaflets, and the only difference is
that the fruits are called ‘‘ovate,” having probably
been described from immature dried specimens, in
Tame tne true form of the fruit is apt to be
disguised by the shrinking of the soft, half-formed
seed and of its enclosing pericarp. I have, besides,
seen with my own eyes that the Guarana of Brazil
and the Cupana of Venezuela are one and the same
plant, which is cultivated in villages and farms all
the way up the Rio Negro, and is known as
Gaarana in the lower, but as Cupana in the
upper part of that river; while about the line of
demarcation between Brazil and Venezuela it is
called indifferently by both names. The very same
plant is cultivated also at Javita, and in the villages
of the Atabapo and Orinoco, as far north as to the
cataracts of the latter. J have nowhere seen it wild.
I gathered the following information about
Guarana at Santarem, on the Amazon, and at the
mourn of the river Uaupes. The fruit is gathered
when fully ripe, and the seeds are picked out of
the pericarp and aril, which dye the hands of the
operators a permanent yellow. The seeds are then
roasted, pounded, and made up into sticks, much
in the same way as chocolate, which they rather
resemble in colour. In 1850, a stick of guarana
used to weigh from one to two pounds, and was
sold at about 2s. 4d. the pound at Santarem; but
at Cuyaba, the centre of the gold and diamond
452 NOTES OF A BOTANISS CHAP.
region, whither it was conveyed from Santarem
and the Mauhés by the long and dangerous naviga-
tion of the Tapajoz, it was worth six or eight times
as much. The usual form of the sticks was long
oval or nearly cylindrical; but in Martius’s time
(1820) guarand was “in panes ellipticos vel
globosos formatum,”’ and old residents at Santarem
had seen it made up into figures of birds, alligators,
and other animals. The intense bitterness of the
fresh seed is almost dissipated by roasting, and a
slight aroma is acquired. The essential ingredient
of guarana, as we learn from the investigations of
Von Martius and his brother Theodore, is a prin-
ciple which they have called guaranine, almost
identical in its elements with theine and caffeine,
and possessing nearly the same properties.
Guarana is prepared for drinking by merely
grating about a tablespoonful into a tumbler of
water and adding an equal quantity of sugar. It
has a slight but peculiar and rather pleasant taste,
and it affects the system in much the same way
as tea. I was told that at Cuyaba the thirsty
miners used to resort to the tabernas, in the
intervals of their toil, and call for a glass of guarana,
just as they would for one of lemonade, or of agoa
doce. The brothers Martius strongly advocated the
introduction of guarana into the European pharma-
copceias, and pointed out the maladies wherein its
use seemed indicated. In South America I have
frequently seen it of late years exhibited in nervous
affections, and it has even come to be regarded as a
specific against the jaquéca (z.e. hemicrania) which
is the fashionable ailment of a Peruvian lady. It
has had the reputation of a remedy for diarrhea,
meee NARCOUVES AND STIMULANTS 453
but I did not find it so, although I have tried it
largely both on myself and others. The bitter
unroasted seeds, as used in Venezuela, are probably
it@ecemciticacious.- The general notion on the
Amazon was, however, that guarana was rather a
preventive of sickness, and especially of epidemics,
than a cure for any, and Martius says of it “pro
panacea peregrinantium habetur,” which is precisely
the estimate made of it in the south of Venezuela.
Guaytisa, a Tonic used in the Eastern Andes
Instead of Cupana or Guarana, the Zaparos and
Jibaros, who inhabit the eastern side of the
Equatorial Andes, have Guayusa, a plant of very
similar properties, but used by them in a totally
different way. The Guayusa is a true Holly (Ilex),
allied to the mate or Paraguay tea (/lex para-
guayensts), but with much larger leaves. I was
unable to find it in flower or fruit, and cannot say
iieit-we a@ cdescriped species. Phe tree is planted
near villages, and small clumps of it in the forest
on the ascent of the Cordillera indicate deserted
Indian sites. The highest point at which I have
seen it is at about 5000 feet above the sea, in the
gorge of the Pastasa below Banos, on an ancient
site called Antombds, a little above a modern cane-
frieeivtac Same name. Phere, in 1857, was a
group of Guayusa trees, supposed to date from
before the Conquest, that is, to be considerably
over 300 years old. They were not unlike old
Holly trees in England, except that the shining
leaves were much larger, thinner, and unarmed.
When I travelled overland through the forest
454 NOTES OF A BOTANIS( eae
of Canelos, and my coffee gave out, I made tea of
guayusa leaves, and found it very palatable. The
Jibaros make the infusion so strong that it becomes
positively emetic. The guayusa-pot, carefully
covered up, is kept simmering on the fire all night,
and when the Indian wakes up in the morning he
drinks enough guaytisa to make him vomit, his
notion being that if any food remain undigested on
the stomach, that organ should be aided to free
itself of the encumbrance. Mothers give a strong
draught of it, and a feather to tickle the throat with,
to male children of very tender age. I rather think
its use 1s tabooed to females of all ages, like caapi
on the Uaupés. Indians are not by any means so
solicitous to empty the bowels early in the day as
to clear out the stomach. On-the contrary, all
through South America I have noticed that when
the Indian has a hard day's work before him, and
has only a scanty supply of food, he prefers to go
until night without an evacuation, and he has
greater control over the calls of nature than the
white man has. Their maxim, as an Indian at San
Carlos expressed it to me in (rude: Spamismmns
“Quien caga de manana es guloso” (he who, goes
to stool in a morning is a glutton).
From all that has been said, it may be gathered
that the domestic medicine of the South American
Indians is chiefly hygienic, as such medicine ought
to be, it being of greater daily importance a
preserve health than to cure disease. Ji “them
physicians be mere charlatans, their lack of skill
may often be compensated by the ignorant faith of
their patients ; and their methods are scarcely more
=] NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS ass
ridiculous—certainly less dangerous to the patient—
than those of the Sangrados, Purgons, Macrotons,
pie pontrayea by ILesage and, Moliere. If, to
procure for himself fleeting sensual pleasures, the
poor Indian’s ‘‘untutored mind” leads him to
sometimes partake of substances which are either
hurtful in themselves or become so when indulged
in to excess, examples of similar hallucination are
not wanting even among peoples that boast of their
high degree of civilisation.
Mis does not profess to be a treatise on all
known South American narcotics, or I should have
to speak of a vast number more, such as (for instance)
the numerous plants used for stupefying fish. Some
of these, but especially the Timbo-acui (Paulhnza
piunata), are said to be also ingredients in the slow
poisoning which some Amazonian nations are
accused of practising; and on the Pacific side of
the Andes the same is affirmed of the Yuca-ratén,
which is the thick soft white root of a Leguminous
tree (Gliricidize sp.) frequent in the plain of Guaya-
quil. The Curare also would require a chapter to
itself, and must be reserved for another occasion.
CIA Pal ER? ee
THE WARLIKE WOMEN OF THE AMAZON:
A HISTORICAL: STUDY
[ THIs essay was written by Spruce as an appendix
to his chapter on the Trombetas river, near the
mouth of which the early discoverers first en-
countered the fighting women. But as the evidence
adduced by Spruce for their existence is spread over
a large part of Amazonia, it seems better to give it
here. By doing so I have been enabled to divide
the present work into two volumes of nearly equal
size, each dealing with a well-defined geographical
area. |
THE Women WARRIORS
I cannot dismiss the Trombetas without saying a
few words about the warlike women whom Orellana
affirmed that he encountered on his voyage down
the Great River, the site of the encounter having
been identified by subsequent travellers with the
mouth either of the Trombetas or of the Nhamunda
(called also the Cunuris), which is the next tributary
of the Amazon to westward. It is of little moment
to which river we assign it, when (according to
Baena) the Nhamunda has two mouths, 14 leagues
apart, and the lower mouth is but 6 leagues above
456
CHAP, XXVI WARLIKE WOMEN Ane,
the mouth of the Trombetas. That it was at no
great distance above the mouth of the Tapajos is
plain from Orellana’s account that, two or three
days after his fight with the ‘‘ Amazons,” he came to
a pleasant country where there were Evergreen-
oaks and Cork-trees (Alcornoques), the latter, as we
have already seen, being the name the Spaniards
still give to Curatella americana, and the former
indicating probably the Plumeria phagedenica.
(2ee volt. p. 67.) The country around Santarem
is the only one which corresponds to this description
throughout the whole course of the Amazon.
Orellana has been much ridiculed and called
all sorts of hard names by people who have never
taken the trouble to read his original Report to the
Emperor Charles V., or the account of the voyage
drawn up by F. Gaspar Carbajal, a Dominican
friar who accompanied him. The voyagers heard
rumours of the existence of the Amazons long
before reaching them. Even before getting out of
the Napo into the main river, we read that an Indian
chief informed Friar Carbajal about the Amazons ;
and two hundred leagues below the mouth of that
river, in the village where they built their brigantine,
ticeiiendly chief Aparia inquired of Orellana if
he had seen the Amazons, whom in his language
they called Coniapuyara (masterful women ?). And
ween trey actually encountered the real (or
supposed) Amazons, what is their account of what
betelle theny: That having landed’ at a place to
traffic with the Indians, the latter attacked Orellana’s
party and fought bravely and obstinately. That ten
or twelve women fought in front of the Indians, and
with such vigour that the Indians did not dare to
458 NOTESSOF “A BOTANTSS CHAP.
turn their backs. ‘These women appeared to be
very tall, robust, and fair, with long hair twisted
over their heads, skins round their loins, and bows
and arrows in their hands, with which they killed
seven or eight Spaniards.” This is all that they
profess to have seen with their own eyes of those
warlike women; and, as Herrera remarks on it, “it
was no new thing in the Indies for women to fight,
and to use bows and arrows, as has been seen on
some of the Windward Islands and at Cartagena,
where they displayed as much courage as the men.”
In the account of the return of Columbus from
his second voyage we read that when he arrived
at Guadeloupe (having started from Hispaniola),
numbers of women, armed with bows and arrows,
opposed the landing of his men... 7Phis@iewonme
instance, of many such, recounted by the Spanish
historians,
I have myself seen that Indian women can fight.
At the village of Chasuta, on the malos pasos of
the river Huallaga, which in 1855 had a population
of some 1800 souls, composed of two tribes of
Coscanasoa Indians, the ancient rivalry of those
tribes generally breaks forth when a large quantity
of chicha has been imbibed during the celebration
of one of their feasts. Then, on opposite sides of
the village, the women pile up heaps of stones, to
serve as missiles for the ‘men, and renew them
continually as they are being expended. If, as
sometimes happens, the men are driven back to and
beyond their piles of stones, the women defend the
latter obstinately, and generally hold them until the
men are able to rally to the combat. At that epoch
there was no permanent white resident at Chasuta,
XXXVI WARLIKE WOMEN 459
and travellers who were so unfortunate as to be
detained there during one of these fights were glad
to keep themselves shut up until the stony storm
had abated ; and with reason, for there had been two
instances, within a few years, of a white man being
barbarously murdered by the Indians of Chasuta.
There is, therefore, no necessity for supposing
that the Spaniards mistook men for women, either,
according to the Abbe Raynal, because they were
beardless, or, according to Wallace, because they
were long-haired; for (1) American savages are
generally beardless; and (2) the Spaniards had
been for two whole years among Indians who wore
their hair long, as they do to this day throughout
the forest of Canelos, the scene of Orellana’s
wanderings with Gonzalo Pizarro; nay, the prin-
cipal tribe among them, afterwards preached to by
the most famous of the Quito missionaries and
martyrs, F. Rafael Ferrer, were so notorious for the
length to which they allowed their hair to grow as
to have got the name of Encabellados. Moreover,
onthe: Amazon itself, at the village of the chief
Aparia, we read that ‘‘at this time four tall Indians
came to the captain, dressed and adorned with orna-
ments, and with their hair reaching down to the waist.”
As to the account given to Orellana by an Indian
whom he captured some way farther down the river,
about the whole country being subject to warlike
women who were very rich in gold and silver, and
had five houses of the sun plated with gold, while
their own dwellings were of stone and their cities
were fortified, Orellana merely repeats it as it was
told to him, evidently, however, believing it himself;
nor ought we to accuse him of credulity when we
460 NOTES-OF A BOTANITS# CHAP.
call to mind that he had lately left in Peru a reality
in some respects more wondrous than this report.
Herrera remarks very judiciously on it: ‘The
tales of Indians are always doubtful, and Orellana
confessed he did not understand those Indians, so
that it seems he could hardly have made, in so few
days, a vocabulary correct and copious enough to
enable him to comprehend the minute details given
by this Indian.” I may add, too, that the Spaniards
would probably ask as they went along for gold
under its Peruvian name of curi, and as curi (with
merely a difference in the accent) is the Tupi term
for coloured earth, it is not surprising that they
should have received constant assurances of its
abundance throughout the Amazon. 3
It is worthy to be noted that F. Carbayal, although
he has left on record his dissatisfaction with the
conduct of Orellana, confirms instead of contradict-
ing the account of the combat with the Amazons,
having, in fact, been himself one of the wounded
in it. Besides, as is well remarked by Velasco
(fZestorta de Quito, i. 167), “he (Orellana) did not
go alone to the court, but with fifty companions,
many of them so disgusted with his conduct that
they refused to accompany him on his return. He
was giving information to his sovereign, who might
utterly ruin him if he detected him in a falsehood,
and it ought to have been easy to detect him, with
sO many witnesses unfavourably disposed towards
him. Besides, it is incredible that fifty persons, and
amongst them a religious priest, should agree in
guaranteeing the truth of a lie, especially when
nothing was to be gained by it.”
We have also a very good and independent
a: WARLIKE WOMEN 461
account of this voyage from Gonzalo Fernandez de
Oviedo, who was in the Island of St. Domingo when
Orellano touched there on his way to Spain, in the
ship he had purchased in the Isle of Trinidad.
Oviedo relates what he was told by Orellana’s
companions, and it corresponds in all essential
points with the navigator’s own narrative; with the
important addition that the women fought naked to
the waist, and that they had zo¢ one of the breasts
cut off, like the Asiatic Amazons—a question Oviedo
had particularly asked of the Spaniards.
Mime litle | had read before leaving England
about the existence of a nation of women living
apart from men, somewhere in the interior of South
America, threw ridicule on the notion, and attributed
its origin to lying Spanish chroniclers, so that |
confess to have not thought it worth while to make
a single inquiry on the spot as to whether the
tradition were still extant; but when I afterwards
came to read carefully the relations of those authors
who had bestowed most attention on the subject,
I was surprised to find them all agreed on the
tradition having been based on fact. I allude
especially to Acufia, Feijoo, Condamine, Velasco,
Southey, and Humboldt; but it is nowhere more
fully discussed than in a small treatise by Van
Heuvel entitled AZ Dorado, to which, and to the
writings of the celebrated authors just mentioned, |
must refer the reader.
The ways by which the country of those women
melt be \reached, as related by travellers and
missionaries, seem to converge not to one, but to
two points; the one to northward of the Amazon, a
good distance below the Rio Negro; the other to
A462 NOTES OF A BOTANISS CHAP.
southward of it, above the Rio Negro, and some-
where between the rivers Coari and Teffé. In the
very year of Orellana’s encounter with the Amazons
(1541), Cabeza de Vega headed an expedition which
ascended the Plata and the Paraguay in search of
gold. From the latter river he sent Hernando de
Ribeiro ahead, in a brigantine, with fifty-two men,
to explore the lake of Xarayes,a Targemaimicr jo:
country periodically inundated, lying to eastward of
what was afterwards the Province of Moxos. From
the Xarayes Indians Ribeiro received information
of the Amazons, whose country he was told lay two
months’ journey to the northward ; and, disregard-
ing the warning of the chief of the Xarayes, that it
would be impracticable to traverse the forests at that
season of floods, he and his party proceeded on foot
for eight days, with the water up to their middle.
This brought them to another nation, the Siberis ;
and a journey thence of nine days (the first four
being still wading through the water) to the nation
of Urtueses, who told them there was yet a month’s
journey to the Amazons, with much flooded ground
to traverse. From this point they were compelled
to regress by their provisions giving out; and the
plantations of the Urtueses having been devastated
for two successive years by some insect, no more
food was to be had; but those Indians reiterated
the assurance of the existence of a nation of women,
governed by a woman, and possessing plenty of
both white and yellow metal, their seats and utensils
being made of them. They lived on the western
(eastern ?) side of a large lake, which they called the
Mansion of the Sun, because the sun sank into it
(Southey’s Hestory of Braztl, pp. 156-159).
XXVI WARLIKE WOMEN 4623
Mawatcds) they close of the sixteenth century,
eee yorian Bazarre, a Jesuit missionary to the
Tapacura Indians (a tribe of Moxos), heard accounts
similar to those related by Ribeiro, tending to place
the Amazons in the country lying southward of the
Great River and westward of the Purts, or very
nearly where Condamine many years afterwards (in
1741) heard such circumstantial accounts of them.
This traveller spoke at Coari with an Indian whose
grandfather had met a party of those women at the
mouth of the river Cuchinara (now the Purtis).
“Elles venoient de celle de Cayamé, qui débouche
dans Amazone. du cote du.Sud entre Tefé. et
Coari; quil avoit parlé a quatre d’entr’elles, dont
une avoit un enfant a la mamelle: il nous dit le
nom de chacune delles; il ajouta qu’en partant de
Cuchinara elles traversérent le Grand Fleuve, et
Pumetrte chemin de la riviere Noire... . Plus bas
que Coari, les Indiens nous dirent partout les
mémes choses avec quelques variétés dans les cir-
constances ; mais tous furent d’accord sur le point
principal.” For many other details, tending to the
same conclusions, I must again refer the reader to
the original.
The numerous missionaries on the Amazon
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries all
testify to the same traditions. It was no uncommon
thing, they say, for Indians in confession to accuse
themselves of having been of the number of those
who were admitted to visit periodically the women
living alone. ‘Their testimony may be summed up
in the words of an old Indian at San Regis de los
Yameos (a village on the left bank of the Amazon
above the mouth of the Ucayalt), as delivered to the
464 NOTES OF (A BOTAN CHAP.
priest F. Sancho Aranjo, who was Condamine’s
host when he passed that way, and who afterwards
-repeated them to F. Velasco.
1. That respecting the first combat the Spaniards
had had with the warlike women, there was no one
in all the missions who did not know of it by
acne from father to son.
. What he had heard: his forelavieres say those
women had retired far into the interior, across the
Rio Negro.
3. That, according to common report, they still
existed, and that some Indians visited them every
year, but not in their proper country; for the women
always met the men at some place previously agreed
on a long way from their homes (whose site the men
were not permitted to know), and, after conversing
with them as long as they listed, dismissed them
with presents of gold and green stones, and of the
male children that had been born and had reached
the age of two or three years.
4. That these women were always governed by
one, chosen on account of her valour, and who
always marched to battle at their head (Velasco,
TOG ACLL RLIe
The green stones spoken of here and elsewhere
—called also Amazon stones—were formerly met
with among nearly all the Indians of Tropical,
America, but seem now to have totally disappeared
from the Amazon. I, at least, never either saw or
heard of one there in the hands of the Indians; nor
is that to be wondered at when we recollect how
eagerly they were at one time bought up. by
Europeans on account of their supposed medicinal
virtues. At the beginning of the present century
oe Se ee
XXVI WARLIKE WOMEN 405
we learn from Humboldt that the price of a cylinder
two inches long was from twelve to fifteen dollars in
Spanish Guayana. He obtained a few of them from
the dwellers on the Upper Rio Negro. According
to Condamine they were once common articles on
the:site of the modern Santarem. ‘‘C’est chez les
Topayos qu’on trouve aujourd’hui, plus aisément
que partout ailleurs, de ces pierres vertes, connues
sous le nom de Pierres des Amazones, dont on
jenore Forigine, et. qui ont été fort recherchées
autrefois, a cause des vertus qu’on leur attribuoit de
@uerir de la Pierre, de la Colique néphretique et de
lEpilepsie” (Voyage, p. 137). Even to this day
their origin is doubtful, for it is said that no jade
of the same kind as these stones has been found
anywhere in South America, although it exists in
Mexico. The notable thing about them is that the
South American Indians in whose hands they have
been seen by Europeans all agreed in asserting them
to be obtained from the women without husbands,
or, on the Orinoco, from the women living alone
(Aikeambenanos in the Tamanac language, according
tov. Gull).
Velasco cites also a conversation he had with a
friar, F. José Bahamonte, who had been for forty
- years a missionary on the Marafion, to the effect
that, being in 1757 in the village of Pevas, shortly
after the Portuguese garrison of the fort of the Rio
Negro had mutinied against their commandant,
“those deserters, having left the major nearly dead
and pillaged the warehouses and the royal treasury,
fled up the Marafion, and reached Pevas a few at a
time. Some of them remained in the mission;
others went on to Quito. With one of those parties
VOL. Il 2H
A66 NOTES - OF A BOTAN CHAP.
there arrived at my village a very good-looking
Indian of about sixty, inquiring for the nation of the
Pevas and speaking their language, and yet not
known to anybody there. After a while he came to
me and besought me to hear in secret the motive of
his coming thither. Having taken him apart, where
we could be overheard of no one, he prostrated
himself at my feet, and earnestly entreated me to
receive him into my village and make him anew a
Christian. I asked him if, being baptized, he had
denied the Christian faith. He said no, but thas
although he was already a Christian, he had always
lived like a heathen.” The Indian) thes’ telle (ime
story in full to the priest; how he was a Peva by
birth, and had been baptized at the mission when
young; but that, as he grew up, having taken a
great dislike to the severe discipline of the mission,
he had fled from it down the Amazon, and finally
established himself in a village on the river Teffe.
There he was recommended by an Indian to enter
on the office of one lately deceased who used every
year to visit the women without husbands. Having
followed this employ for thirty years, and received
from the women many presents of gold and green
stones, he was obliged to relinquish it on account of
an injury he received, and also (as he asserted) by a
remorseful conscience which continually tormented
him. ‘‘ The death of this Indian,’ adds the goad
missionary, ‘‘a few months afterwards, having lived
during that period a penitent and holy life, was one
of the greatest consolations that befell me in the
missions, for I felt convinced, from his good
conduct, that he was predestinated ” (Velasco, Coc.
E10 .1Ps las)
XXVI WARLIKE WOMEN 467
The accounts heard by Raleigh on the Orinoco,
in 1595, of a nation of female warriors existing on
the Amazon, seem to combine both the above-
specified sites. ‘I made inquiry,” says he, “among
the most ancient and travelled of the Orinokoponi
[the Indian inhabitants of the Orinoco] respecting
the warlike women, and will relate what I was in-
formed of as truth about them, by a Cacique who
said he had been on, that river [the Amazon], and
beyond it also. Their country is on the south side
of the river, in the province of Tobago [ Topayos],
and their chief places are in the islands on the south
side of it, some 60 leagues from the mouth. They
accompany with men once in a year for a month,
wmemeisain ipl... . Childrén born of these
alliances, if males, they send them to their fathers ;
if daughters, they take care of them and bring them
up,’ etc. Another report he heard was that “there
is a province in Guyana called Cunuris, which is
governed by a woman ’”—plainly a Cufa-puyara. It
is to be noted that these reports were heard near
the mouth of the Orinoco, or some 2000 miles away
from the supposed country of the Amazons, from
Indians who had them from one another and not
from the Spaniards; and that the Cunuris is for
the first time indicated by name in this relation of
Raleigh's. We have the most complete account
© tme fiver and district of Cunuris, and of the ex-
tant traditions respecting the Amazons, in Acufia’s
description of his voyage down the Amazon in 16309.
He mentions four nations who inhabit on the river
Cunuris, the Cunurfs (Indians) being nearest the
mouth, and the Guacards the highest up; while
1 Cayley’s Life of Raleigh, pp. 194-195.
468 NOTES OF A BOTAN CHAP.
beyond the last were the Amazons. ‘ These man-
like women,” he says, “‘have their abodes in great
forests and on lofty hills, amongst which that which
rises above the rest, and is therefore beaten by the
winds for its pride with most violence, so that it
is bare and clear of vegetation, is called Yacamiaba ”
(Yacamé, the Tupi name of the Trumpeter bird or
Agami; Ada or awa, people).
When I read this account of Acufa’s, some years
after I had left the Amazon, I was struck with the
connection of the name of the hill Yacamiaba with
that of an Indian dance I had seen on the Upper
Amazon in 1851. The dance was called Yacami-
cuha (Agami woman), and the performers in it
moved to the rude music of a pipe and tambour ;
and to the words of a song, which I unfortunately
neglected to take down at the time. A lot of young
people joined hands to form a ring, in which males
and females alternated, and danced round and round,
singing the song of the Yacami. At the words
“VYacami-cufa-cuna!” the ring suddenly broke up-—
the partners turned tail to tail and bumped each
other repeatedly, with such goodwill that one of
the two (and as often the man as the woman) was
frequently sent reeling across the room, amidst the
uproarious laughter of the bystanders. The Yacamis
or Agamis are, as is well known, birds without any
tail-feathers, those appendages having diappeared
from the birds continually rubbing their sterns to-
gether—so, at least, says Indian tradition, which has
been embodied in the dance ; and it is easy to under-
stand its application to a rocky hill, shaggy below
with woods, bare at the summit, such as 27> have
seen many in both Brazilian and Spanish Guayana.
=
XXVI WARLIKE WOMEN 469
May not also both the names, Yacami-women and
Yacami-people, allude to the women living alone ?
Van Heuvel met with a Caribi chief at the head
of the river Essequibo, who, when asked about the
nation of women, said “he had not seen them, but
had heard his father and others speak of them.
That they live on the Wasa [the Ouassa of the
French maps, a tributary of the Oyapock]. Their
place of abode is surrounded with large rocks,
and the entrance is through a rock” (£7 Dorado,
pei). 7
Condamine was informed by a soldier in the
garrison of Cayenne, that in 1726 he had accom-
panied a detachment which was sent to explore the
interior of the country ; 1n pursuance of which object
they had penetrated to the country of the Ami-
couanes, a long-eared people, who dwell beyond
the sources of the Oyapock, near to where another
river takes its rise that falls into the Amazon
[the Oyapock falling into the Atlantic in lat. about
fees othe: country lies high, and none of the
rivers are navigable. There the soldier had seen
on the necks of the women and girls certain green
stones, which the Indians said they obtained from
the women who had no husbands (Voyage, p. 102).
We have mention of the long-eared folk, and
of the same kind of savage rocky country as all
tradition assigns to the abiding-place of the Amazons,
in Unton Fisher’s relation of his voyage up the
Mariwin (Marony). ‘The passage to the head of
the Mariwin, from the men with long ears (which
is the thirteenth town from the mouth), is very
dangerous, by reason of the passage through hollow
and concave rocks, wherein harbour bats of unreason-
470 NOTES; OF *A BOTANISa CHAP.
able bigness, which, with their claws and wings, do
wound the passengers shrewdly; yea, and often-
times deprive them of life.” ?
Van Heuvel cites various accounts which he
found still current in Guayana, all tending to collo-
cate the warlike women on a site just beyond the
sources of the Essequibo, Marony, and Oyapock,
which lie apparently very near to each other, and
also to the sources of the Trombetas and Nhamunda,
the two latter rivers running in a contrary direction
to the three former, z.e. southwards, or towards the
Amazon.
I might adduce a great deal more evidence to
show the universality of the traditions in Tropical
America of a nation of women, whose permanent
habitation was from 1° to 2° north of the Equator,
and in long. 54° to 58 W.; and whose annual
rendezvous with their lovers was held on a site in
lat; aboutss <5: lone toss
Those traditions must have had some foundation
in fact, and they appear to me inseparably connected
with the traditions of El Dorado. I think I have
read nearly all that has been written about the
Gilded King and his city and country; and, com-
paring it with my own South American experience,
I can hardly doubt that that country was Peru—
possibly combined (or confused) with Mexico. The
lake called the Mansion of the Sun, because the
1 The whole of this curious relation is given in Purchas’s Collectzon of
Voyages, Bk. vi. ch. xvii., and is placed immediately after that of the voyage
made by Robert Harcourt to Guayana in 1608. Purchas says of it: ‘‘I found
this fairly written among Mr. Hakluyt’s papers, but know not who was the
author.” But Van Heuvel adduces ample proof of its having been written by
Fisher, cousin of Harcourt, whom the latter left behind him at the third town
on the Mariwin, with instructions to complete the exploration of the river,
which he himself had unsuccessfully attempted.
a WARLIKE WOMEN Ay
sun sank into it, is plainly the Pacific Ocean; but
some accounts seem to point to Lake Titicaca, and
others to the lakes of Mexico; probably the general
notion of such lake was made up of all three. It is
scarcely necessary to remind the reader that most
Indian nations call the ocean and a lake (and in some
cases even ariver) by one and thesame name. The
confusion of town (or city) and country is also unt-
versal among them. I have been gravely told by
a jibaro, Indian in the Andes that France and
England were two towns, standing on opposite
banks of a river, the people on the left bank being
Christians and those on the right heathens: a piece
of ethnology derived from the teaching of Catholic
missionaries, and not at all flattering to myself as
an Englishman.
I think I can trace the progress of the fame of the
riches of Peru quite across South America, to the
Atlantic coast and islands, whence it surged back into
the interior, so disguised and disfigured, that the
Spaniards did not recognise it as indicating an E]
Dorado with which they were already familiar. Now
the accounts of the real El! Dorado of Peru (and
of Mexico) would infallibly be accompanied by
others of the Vestal communities dedicated to the
worship of the sun, z.e. of women living alone, or
women without husbands. If we deny the exist-
ence of a nation, or nations, of warlike women on
the Amazon, then the tradition could only have had
its origin in the \irgins of the Sun; and some
accounts, such as that of Cabeza de Vega and
Ribeiro, possibly point to them alone. But if we
concede the fact of the existence of these war-
like women, then may not the latter have been
472 NOTES OF A BOTANIST ae
originally a community of Vestals, who, having fled
in a body from their nunnery, carrying with them
their ornaments of gold and green stones, estab-
lished themselves in the forests of the plain? Or
they may have accompanied one of those emigra-
tions, led by chieftains who had revolted from the
rule of the Inca, of which we read in the early
historians. In either case they were probably at
first respected by neighbouring savage tribes as a
religious community; and they would gradually
learn the use of the bow and other weapons, more
as implements of the chase than of offence and
defence; for we do not read that they were ever
assaulted by other Indians. I put forward this as
mere conjecture, my object in what precedes having
been principally to vindicate the earlier travellers
and historians, Spanish and English, from the
charges of gross credulity, or even wilful falsehood,
which have been wantonly brought against them.
Is it to be wondered at that unlettered, or at best
imperfectly educated, adventurers should have be-
lieved, and repeated as true, nearly every report
they heard, when we find a man of so philosophic
a turn of mind as Raleigh tellino the most xtc
vagant tales—just as they were told to him, no
doubt, and not adding anything thereto, yet evi-
dently believing them himself in the main?
No one has declared his convictions of the exist-
ence of a nation of Amazons more forcibly and
eloquently than Acufa, and, without endorsing them
fully myself, I close this long. digression with his
own words, recommending them to the candid
consideration of my readers :—
‘The proofs that give assurance that there is a
ai WARLIKE WOMEN 173
province of the Amazons on the banks of this
river are so strong and convincing that it would
be renouncing moral certainty to scruple giving
eredit to it. I do not build upon the solemn ex-
aminations of the sovereign court of Quito, in
which many witnesses were heard, who were born
in these parts and lived there a long time, and who,
of all matters relating to the countries bordering
on Peru, as one of the principal, particularly affirmed
ihat-one of the provinces near the Amazon is
peopled with a sort of warlike women, who live
together and maintain their company alone, with-
out the company of men; but at certain seasons
of the year seek their society to perpetuate their
race. Nor will I insist on other information, ob-
tained in the new kingdom of Grenada, in the royal
city of Pasto, where several Indians were examined ;
but I cannot conceal what I have heard with my
own ears, and concerning the truth of which I have
been making inquiries from my first embarking on
the Amazon; and am compelled to say that I have
been informed at all the Indian towns in which |
have been, that there are such women in the
country, and gvery one gave me an account of
them by marks so exactly agreeing with that which
I received from others, that it must needs be that
the greatest falsehood in the world passes through
all America for one of the most certain histories.” ?
1 Voyages and Discovertes tn South America, by Christopher d’ Acugna,
London, 1698.
CHAPTER, Xxea
INDIAN ROCK-PICTURES: ENGRAVED ROCKS ON THE
RIO NEGRO AND CASIQUIARI (COMMONLY CALLED
INDIAN PICTURE-WRITING)
| WHILE residing at Piura on the sea-coast of Peru
in 1863, and being incapacitated by illness for
outdoor work, Spruce wrote out a description of
these curious works of art illustrated by the draw-
ings he was able to make of some of them, and with
an explanation of their meaning given him by the
Indians who were with him and to whom they were
familiar. He also gives his own view as to their
probable age, and as to the causes that led to their
production. In this paper he does not refer to the
best known of these Picture-writings on the rocks
of Pedra Island, near the mouth of the Rio Branco,
which are briefly described in his Journal. (See
vol. i. p. 260.) This paper refers soley iegime
examples of which he made drawings on the
Casiquiar1 and Uaupés rivers. |
INDIAN PICTURE-WRITING?
When I ascended the Casiquiari in December
1853, I charged my pilot, an intelligent Indian of
1 In his Journal (1851), when describing the figures on Pedra Island (Lower
Rio Negro), he protested against the use of the term ‘‘ picture-writing ” as con-
veying the erroneous idea that they are in any sense writings or hieroglyphics.
Twelve years later he uses the popular term, though showing that it is an
incorrect one.
A74
feet INDIAN ROCK-PICTURES A475
the Barré nation, to point out to me any engraved
rocks which lay in our way. On reaching the Pedra
de Culimacari, a bed of granite a little beyond the
mouth of the Pacimoni, we found it still under water,
so that the figures seen there and copied by Hum-
boldt in the beginning of the century were not
visible. The pilot consoled me by saying that when
we reached the Laja de Capibara he would show
me there ten times more figures than | had missed
seeing at Culimacari. On the 9th of December we
passed the mouth of Lake Vasiva, and on the 11th
reached a modern Indian village called Yamadu-
bani (Wild Man’s Land), or more commonly Pueblo
de Ponciano, having been founded by an Indian
named Ponciano, who was not long dead. Early
on the morning of the 13th we came upon the
deserted site of another village called Capibara,
being the zom de guerre of its founder, after whose
death it has become depopulated. It is on the left
(S.E.) side of the Casiquiari. Leaving here part
of the crew to cook our breakfast, I took with me
the rest, and under the guidance of the pilot struck
i@routne forest in quest of picture-writing., After
walking about half a mile, we came out on large flat
sheets of granite rock, naked save where in fissures
of the rock there were small oases of vegetation,
the first plants to establish themselves there being
a few lichens and mosses, and, rarely, some stunted
shrubs. ‘The bare places, one of which was an acre
in extent, were covered with rude figures, the out-
lines of which were about half an inch wide, and
were graven in the rock to nearly an inch deep.
The figures were in perfect preservation except that
in rare cases they were obliterated by the shaling of
476 NOTES OF * BOTA wiEt CHAP.
the rock, the granite of that region having often three
or more thin coats comparable to those of an onion,
as if the cooling down had not been equable.’ I
immediately set to work to copy, and the Indians
of their own accord cleared out the earth and lichens
which had filled up some of the lines. As it was
impossible to copy all, I selected those figures which
were most distinct, and those which, by their fre-
quent repetition, might be considered typical. That
marked A (Fig.17), for instance, varying only slightly
in the details, was repeated several times. It was
not possible to draw all by hand to the same scale,
but as I measured most of the figures, that defect
can easily be remedied in recopying them.
In all the drawings which illustrate this chapter,
the small figures give the dimensions in feet and
inches. When underlined they show the entire
length of the object copied, as 3/10 am the cemte
figure of Fig. 17 means that it is 3-teetremnenc]
long ; otherwise they indicate the length of the line
at which they are written. Thus 2/5 on the right
side of A shows that the longer side of the oblong
is 2 feet.5 inches long, and the cross line om tie
right is 4 feet long. ;
As I sketched, I asked the Indians, ‘‘Who had
made those figures, and what they represented ?” but
received only the universal reply of the Indian
when he cares not to tell or will not take the trouble to
recollect, “ Quien sabe, patron ?” (‘Who knows ?”).
But I understood enough of Barre to note that in
1 [For drawings of such onion-like rocks see Plate x. in my Amazon and
Rio Negro. It occurs on every scale from that of moderate-sized boulders up
to whole mountains. It is seen on a great scale in the huge domes of the
Yosemite valley, and is now believed to be the result of a process of aerial
decomposition due to the action of sun and rain. —ED. ]
fend Repti
ee INDIAN ROCK-PICTURES 477
their talk to each other they were saying, ‘‘ This is
e@=ime-so, ang this so-and-so. ‘‘Yes, I struck in,
“and don't you think this is so-and-so?” Thus led
on, I got them to give their opinion of most of the
figures. About some they were quite certain; about
ne
ae
y
y |
-e | i |
——> Vv
E1G. 16.:—GROUP OF PICTURES AT LAJA DE CAPIBARA,
RIVER CASIQUIARI.
others they would only speculate. Of all the figures
the one marked G (Fig. 16) was that whose origin
seemed clearest both to them and to me. _ It repre-
sents a mandiocca-oven (called budari in Barré)—a
large circular dish of fireproof pottery, supported
on a wall of mud-masonry, which has an opening
478 NOTES OF A BOTANISH CHAP.
on one side (rudely figured at @), into which fire is
put, and another at the opposite (as at 6), which
-serves asa flue. Of the articles laid on the budari,
¢ is the brush of piassaba tied tightly round at
midway, which serves for sweeping the oven before .
the cassava cake or farinha is spread out to bake ;
d is the palm-leaf fan for blowing the fire; and my
Indians would have it that @’ was another fan, but
the hook at one corner (which, whenever it occurs
in these figures, indicates a bit of liana-rope by which
the utensil is hung up) renders it probable that
something else was meant; e is a stage (or shelf)
such as may be seen of various sizes hung from the
roof of an Indian’s hut, but especially over the oven
and hearth, the smoke from which acts as an antiseptic
to the dried fish and other viands kept on the
stages, and also partially keeps off the cockroaches ;
f is either the mandiocca-grater or, more probably,
a flat piece of board, sometimes with a hole to
insert the fingers, which is used to raise the edges
of the cassava cake and to aid in turning it over.
All these articles are in use to this day throughout
a vast extent of country on the Orinoco and Casi-
quiari. Even in the Andes, a triangular or square
fan, plaited by the Indians of the leaves of maize or
wild cane, is the only bellows used by the Quitonian
housewife.
The figures marked B (Fig. 17) were declared
by my Indians to be dolphins, whereof two species
abound in the Amazon and Orinoco.
C they said was plainly the same sort of thing
as the big papers (maps) I was continually poring
over. For @ is the town—often consisting of a
single annular house, with a road from it leading
XXVII PDT NevOCikePiChURES 479
down to the cafo (or stream leading into the main
river, c), while 4 is a track leading through the
forest to another tributary stream which here and
there expands into lakes, while other lakes send
their waters to it. There were other figures appar-
ently geographical, but the one I copied was the
most complicated and perfect.
- A
ae eed B
O SY apa
WOW Ye
)
AM
Fic. 17,—GROUP OF PICTURES aT LAJA DE CAPIBARA,
RIVER CASIQUIARI.
D (Fig. 18) are ray-fishes, which are found of
enormous size in the Casiquiari and Rio Negro, and
sometimes inflict deadly wounds on incautious bathers.
Bom, igs. 16 and 18 and perhaps A on Fig. 17
was thought by my companions to be the quiver for
holding the darts of the blowing-cane.
By the time I had covered three sheets with
figures, the sun began to beat hot on my head,
protected by only a light cap, and although my
480 NOTES OF A -BOLANISa CHAP.
pilot told me that farther away in the forest there
were more granite sheets covered with pictures, I
was obliged to content myself with what I had
Fic. 18.—GROUP OF PICTURES AT LAJA DE CAPIBARA,
RIVER CASIQUIARI.
already seen and done; for I had engaged to meet
the Comisario of San Fernando at Esmeralda on
Christmas Day, and to get there I had still a long
voyage before me, going slowly along as I did in
my large boat and gathering plants all the way.
XXVII INDIAN ROCK-PICTURES 481
A few miles from the upper mouth of the Casi-
quiari a stream called Calipo enters it where there
is some picture-writing that was covered with water
when I passed up; but when I[ returned (on Janu-
ary 6, 1854) the Casiquiari had lowered 2 feet, and
at the mouth of the Cano Calipo a good many
figures were laid bare, all of which I copied. The
figures on Fig. 19 have the same relative posi-
tions and distances as on the rock, and apparently
Fic. 19.—GROUP OF PICTURES ON RIGHT BANK OF THE CASIQUIARI,
A LITTLE ABOVE THE CANO DE CALIPO.
represent a family group, whereof my interpreter
assured me that H symbolised a chief, and that
fie Meures on the right were his three wives
and a child, the principal wife being distinguished
by the plume worn on her head. The curious
figures on the left may perhaps be meant for the
prehensile-tailed Iguanas, which being very good
food would be of especial interest.
The other group (Fig. 20) repeats the symbol
of a chief (at H H), with some four-footed animal,
perhaps a dog, on the left. The rest are probably
household goods of some kind.
Picture-writing is frequent throughout the granite
district of the Casiquiari, but I have nowhere seen
VOL. II Dal
482 NOTES OF A BOTAN@S CHAP.
so much of it together as at the Laja de Capibara.
The best executed figures, however, I have met
with, and the only ones about which I could make
out any extant tradition, are in the river Paapuris,
which enters the Uaupés from the south at Jauarité
caxoeira, and is inhabited by Fish and Mosquito
Indians (Pira-Tapuyas and Carapanas). The Paa-
7 jm
pom ax
= Een ie
a
ge
SS
FIG. 20.—GROUP OF PICTURES ON RIGHT BANK OF THE CASIQUIARI,
A LITTLE ABOVE THE CANO DE CALIPO.
puris in its lower part is an uninterrupted and
dangerous rapid; and at Aracapa caxoeira, a few
miles up, two islands divide it into three narrow
channels, each of which is a nearly perpen-
dicular cascade of about 15 feet high. At this
point canoes have to be unladen and dragged over
one of the islands, which are masses of granite
having on them much picture-writing, where not
clad with shrubs. The most dicenee figures are
on the top of a rock which rises perpendicularly by
KXVII ENDIAN ROCK-PICTURES 483
the highest fall, and cannot be reached without risk.
They were engraved by a young woman who was
lamenting the death of her mother, for whose
epitaph they were probably intended. Day by
day she sat on the rock engaged in her task, while
her fast-falling tears ceased not to mingle with the
cataract. Thus months passed away, until one day
the maiden, worn with grief and fading almost to a
shadow, fell over the rock and disappeared among
the roaring breakers at its base.
I had not with me pencil or paper of any kind,
and I was obliged to content myself with a hasty
glance at the figures, some of which represented
human beings; nor was I able to revisit the spot.
On the top of the same rock there are shallow
impressions, apparently the work of nature, which
bear some resemblance to a human form, and are
called by the Indians Tupana-rangaua (the figure
of God). The damsels of the Paapuris visit the
spot on stated occasions, and kneeling down on the
knees of the figure, perform some kind of devotion
—what, I could not learn.
I copied a few rude figures on the rocks near
the village of Jauarité. Those on Fig. 21 seem to
represent very rudely various types of trees, as seen
in the three figures on the right. The two upper
ones indicate a buttressed stem or aerial roots, with
flowers or fruits on the three terminal branches ;
while the lower one has a tap-root, and diverging
branches of a more usual type. The lower middle
figure is probably the very rudest symbol of a
human form; while the remainder seem to be
merely fanciful geometrical patterns.
The large figure on Fig. 22 is called by the Indians
484 NOTES OF A BOTANIST ae
the buta or dolphin. On these and other rocks
Fic, 21.—GROUP OF PICTURES AT JAUARITE CAXOEIRA, RIO UAUPES.
of the Uaupés there are impressions called Pe de
Anta (Tapir’s foot), which look as if some three-
XXVII INDIAN ROCK-PIETURES 485
toed foot had trod on the rock while still soft; but
they are scattered, not consecutive. It is not so
Fic. 22,—GROUP OF PICTURES AT JAUARITE CAXOEIRA, RIO UAUPES.
easy to explain these by natural causes as it is that
of the panellas or pots, which are cylindrical holes
frequently met with on the rocks of the falls of the
Rio Negro and Uaupeés; these have been worn—
486 NOTES OF -A BOTANTSS CHAP.
from any accidental hollow at first—and then con-
tinually deepened by the pebbles and sand whirled
round and round in them by the surging and eddying
waves of the cataracts during the season of flood.’
Although we have no elements wherefrom to
determine positively the date and mode of execution
of the picture-writings, those questions seem to me
to have been involved in unnecessary mystery.
The instruments used in scraping such deep lines
in the granite were probably chips of quartz crystal,
which were the hardest cutting-instruments pos-
sessed by the aborigines of South America. In
the Amazonian plain I know of but two extensive
deposits of large rock-crystals—one of which is a
good way up the Rio Branco, and the other is at
the foot of Mount Duida, near the village of Esme-
ralda, therefore in the immediate neighbourhood of
the Casiquiari. I know also of but one such deposit
on the Pacific side of the Andes, namely, in the
hills of Chongon near Guayaquil; yet pieces of
quartz, some of which have served as knives, others
as lance- or arrow-heads, are found strewed about
the sites of ancient towns and settlements through
several degrees of latitude. Whatever the instru-
ment used by the Indians of the Casiquiari, it is
difficult to assign any limit to the time required for
the execution of the figures; but any one who has
seen an [Indian patiently scraping away for months
at a bow or a lance before bringing it to the desired
symmetry and perfection, or who knows that it has
taken a lifetime to fashion and bore the white
1 [The supposed tracks of animals are doubtless works of art like the other
figures, probably due to a desire to imitate the well-formed impressions of feet
that the hunter must continually meet with during his search for game.—ED. ]
XXVII INDIAN ROCK-PICTURES 487
stone which the Uaupés Indian wears suspended
from his neck, will understand that ze is no object
fo-ame indian: 1 can fancy I see the young men
and women sitting in the cool of the morning and
evening, but especially in the moonlight nights, and
amusing themselves by scratching on the rock any
figure suggested by the caprice of the moment. A
figure once sketched, any one, even a child, might
aid in deepening the outlines. Indeed, the designs
are often much in the style of—certainly not at all
superior to—those which a child of five years old
in a village school in England will draw for you
on its slate; and the modern inhabitants of the
Casiquiari, Guainia, etc., paint the walls of their
houses with various coloured earths in far more
artistic designs.
Having carefully examined a good deal of the
so-called picture-writing, | am bound to come to
the conclusion that it was executed by the ancestors
of Indians who at this day inhabit the region where
it is found; that their utensils, mode of life, etc.,
were similar to those still in use; and that their
degree of civilisation was certainly not greater—
probably less—than that of their existing de-
scendants. The execution of the figures may have
ranged through several centuries, a period which
in the existence of a savage people is but a year in
that of the highly-civilised nations of modern Europe.
In vain shall we seek any chronological information
from the Indian, who never knows his own age,
rarely that of his youngest child, and who refers
all that happened before his own birth to a vague
antiquity, wherein there are no dates and rarely any
epochs to mark the sequence of events.
, 488 NOTES OF A BOTANIST caap. xxvi
[Among Spruce’s miscellaneous notes, written
during his voyage up the Rio Negro, the following
passages serve to illustrate the questions above
discussed :— |
I have never yet met with an Indian who knew
his own age or how many years he had lived in his
present house. My pilot on the Trombetas very
gravely stated his age at a hundred years (he was
evidently not more than fifty). I have asked an
Indian the age of his daughter-~. “She ‘may ‘be
twelve—she may be twenty—who knows? What
matter do our ages make to us?”
These picture-writings in Brazil and Spanish
Guiana cannot be considered of remote antiquity,
for (1) they sometimes show rude figures of lions
and other objects belonging to the Old World; (2)
some of them (and especially the Brazilian ones,
e.g. at Monte Alegre, as stated by Mr. Wallace)
have dates affixed, painted with the same colour
and obviously of the same age as the pictures, which
correspond very nearly with the dates of the estab-
lishment of the Portuguese towns of the Amazon,
and not going back above a century or two.
Cigar th Ox VDT
A HIDDEN TREASURE OF THE INCAS
[Tue following narrative forms one of the most
curious pieces of genuine history in connection with
the never-ceasing search for buried treasure in the
territory of the Incas. We owe to the persevering
exertions of Richard Spruce the discovery and the
translation of one of the few remaining copies of the
official order of the Spanish king to search for this
treasure, with the accompanying detailed ‘“ Guide”
tots locality. Still more are we indebted to
his generally esteemed character and ingratiating
manners for obtaining permission to copy the
unique map of the district containing the treasure,
and for undertaking the considerable labour of
copying in the minutest detail so large and elaborate
a map, without which both the ‘‘ Guide” and the story
of the search for the treasure would be unintelligible.
The essential portions of this map, containing the
whole of the route described in the ‘“ Guide,” as
well as the routes of the various explorers (marked
in red), have been reproduced here (see end of
chapter). The portions farther east and south,
which have no immediate relation to the quest for
the treasure, having been omitted in order to make
489
490 NOTES OF A BOTANIST cian
it more convenient for reference here. © Whey sears
of the map is, approximately, six miles to an inch.
In Dr. Theodore Wolff's Geografia et Geologia
de Ecuador (1892), the region of Llanganati is still
referred to as the most unknown part of the whole
of Ecuador. |
A Hippen TREASURE OF THE. INCAS, "IN goose
MounTAINS OF LULANGANATI, ECuADGR =] An
AUTHENTIC “GUIDE To Irs. LocAInive- ieee
TRATED BY A Map. THE MAP (corte Mine
THE GUIDE TRANSLATED BY RICHARD SPRUCE
In the month of July 1857 I reached Bafos,
where I learnt that the snowy points I had observed
from Puca-yacu, between Tunguragua and Coto-
paxi, were the summits of a group of mountains
called Llanganati, from which ran down to the.
Pastasa the densely-wooded ridges I saw to north-
ward. I was further informed that these mountains
abounded in all sorts of metals, and that it was
universally believed the Incas had deposited an
immense quantity of gold in an artificial lake on
the flanks of one of the peaks at the time of the
Spanish Conquest. They spoke also of one Val-
verde, a Spaniard, who from being poor had
suddenly become very rich, which was attributed to
his having married an Indian girl, whose father
showed him where the treasure was hidden, and
accompanied him on various occasions to bring
away portions of it; and that Valverde returned to
Spain, and, when on his death-bed, bequeathed the
secret of his riches to the king. Many expeditions,
public and private, had been made to follow the
i: oe
XXVIII HIDDEN TREASURE 4AQ1I
fie indicated by Valverde, but’ no one -had
succeeded in reaching its terminus; and I spoke
with two men at Baftios who had accompanied
such expeditions, and had nearly perished with cold
and hunger on the paramos of Llanganati, where
they had wandered for thirty days. The whole
sieny seemed so improbable that I paid little
attention to it, and I set to work to examine the
vegetation of the adjacent volcano Tunguragua, at
whose north-eastern foot the village of Banos is
Sumated. -In the month of September I visited
Cotald, a small village on a plateau at about two-
thirds of the ascent of Guayrapata, the hill in front
of Tunguragua and above the confluence of the
fiverss tatate and Chambo. From Cotald, on a
clear night of full moon, I saw not only Tungu-
ragua, El] Altar, Condorasto, and the Cordillera of
Cubilliu, stretching southwards towards the volcano:
Sangay, but also to the eastward the snowy peak
of Llanganati. This is one of the few points from
which Llanganati can be seen; it appears again, in
a favourable state of the atmosphere, a good way
up the slopes of Tunguragua and Chimborazo.
At Banos I was told also of a Spanish botanist
who a great many years ago lost his life by an
accident near the neighbouring town of Patate, and
that several boxes belonging to him, and containing
dried plants and manuscripts, had been left at Banos,
where their contents were finally destroyed by
insects.
In the summers of the years 1858 and 1859 I
visited Quito and various points in the Western
Cordillera, and for many months the country was
SO insecure, on account of internal dissensions, that
492 NOLES. Fa BOTANIS® CHAP.
I could not leave Ambato and Riobamba, where
my goods were deposited, for more than a few
days together. I obtained, however, indisputable
evidence that the ‘ Derrotero” or Guide to Llan-
ganati of Valverde had been sent by the King of
Spain to the Corregidors of Tacunga and Ambato,
along with a Cedula Real (Royal Warrant) com-
manding those functionaries to use every diligence
in seeking out the treasure of the Incas. That one
expedition had been headed by the Corregidor of
Tacunga in person, accompanied by a friar, Padre
Longo, of considerable literary reputation. The
Derrotero was found to correspond so exactly with
the actual localities, that only a person intimately
acquainted with them could have drawn it up; and
that it could have been fabricated by any other
person who had never been out of Spain was an
impossibility. This expedition had nearly reached
the end of the route, when one evening the Padre
Longo disappeared mysteriously, and no traces of
him could be discovered, so that whether he had
fallen into a ravine near which they were encamped,
or into one of the morasses which abound all over
that region, is to this day unknown. After searching
for the Padre in vain for some days, the expedition
returned without having accomplished its object.
The Cedula Real and Derrotero were deposited
in the archives of Tacunga, whence they diss -
appeared about twenty years ago. So many people
were admitted to copy them that at last some one,
not content with a copy, carried off the originals. |
have secured a copy of the Derrotero, bearing date
August 14, 1827; but I can meet with no one who
recollects the date of the original documents.
: i ie F
ee vou) alll
XXVIII HIDDEN TREASURE 493
oO
I ascertained also that the botanist above alluded
to was a Don Atanasio Guzman, who resided some
time in the town of Pillaro, whence he headed
many expeditions in quest of the gold of Llan-
ganati. He made also a map of the Llanganatis,
which was supposed to be still in existence. Guzman
and his companions, although they found no deposit
of gold, came on the mouths of several silver and
copper mines, which had been worked in the time
of the Incas, and ascertained the existence of other
metals and minerals. They began to work the
mines at first with ardour, which soon, however,
cooled down, partly in consequence of intestine
quarrels, but chiefly because they became disgusted
with that slow mode of acquiring wealth when there
was molten gold supposed to be hidden close by ;
so the mines were at length all abandoned. This
is said to have taken place early in the present
bentuiry, but the exact date | can by no means
ascertain. Guzman is reported to have met with
Humboldt, and to have shown his drawings of
plants and animals to that prince of travellers. He
died about 1806 or 1808, in the valley of Leytu,
about four leagues eastward of Ambato, at a small
farmhouse called now Leytillo, but marked on his
map San Antonio. He was a somnambulist, and
having one night walked out of the house while
asleep, he fell down a steep place and so perished.
This is all I have been able to learn, and I fear no
documents now exist which can throw any further
light on the story of his life, though a botanical
manuscript of his is believed to be still preserved in
one of the archives of Quito. I made unceasing
inquiries for the map, and at length ascertained
494 NOTES OF A BOTANIST mee
that the actual possessor was a gentleman of
Ambato, Senior Salvador Ortega, to whom I made
application for it, and he had the kindness to
have it brought immediately from Quito, where
it was deposited, and placed in my hands;*I am
therefore indebted to that gentleman’s kindness
for the pleasure of being able to lay the accom-
panying copy of the map before the Geographical
Society.
The original map is formed of eight small sheets
of paper of rather unequal size (those of my copy
exactly correspond to them), pasted on to a piece of
coarse calico, the whole size being 3 feet 104 inches
by 2 feet 9 inches. It is very neatly painted with a
fine pencil in Indian ink—the roads and roofs of
houses red—but it has been so roughly used that it
is now much dilapidated, and the names, though
originally very distinctly written, are in many cases
scarcely decipherable: in making them out I have
availed myself of the aid of persons familiar with
the localities and with the Quichua language. The
attempt to combine a vertical with a horizontal
projection of the natural features of the country
has produced some distortion and dislocation, and
though the actual outline of the mountains is in-
tended to be represented, the heights care miuem
exaggerated, and consequently the declivities too
steep. Thus the apical angle .of the. comeyaan
Cotopaxi (as I have determined it by actual
measurement) is 121, and the slope (inclination
of its surface to the horizon) 294°; while on
Guzman’s map the slope is 694°, so that the
inclination is only three-sevenths of what he has
represented it, and we may assume a correspond-
jai
XXVIII Hi pwoNetT RE ASURE 495
ing correction needed in all the other mountains
delineated. *
The whole map is exceedingly minute, and the
localities mostly correctly named, but there are
some errors of position, both absolute and relative,
such that I suppose the map to have been con-
structed mainly from a simple view of the country,
and that no angles and very few compass-bearings
have been taken. The margins of the map corre-
spond so nearly with the actual parallels and
meridians, that they may be assumed to represent
the cardinal points of the compass, as on an
ordinary map, without sensible error.
The country represented extends from Cotopaxi
on the north to the base of Tunguragua on the
south, and from the plain of Callo (at the western
foot of Cotopaxi) on the west to the river Puyu, in
the forest of Canelos, on the east. It includes an
area of something less than an equatorial degree,
namely, that comprised between o° 4o’ and 1° 33’
Ss iat, and between o 10 W., and near o° so’ E.
Of the meridian of Quito. In this space are re-
presented six active volcanoes (besides Cotopaxi),
Viz, —
1. El Volcan de los Mulatos, east a little south
from Cotopaxi, and nearly on the meridian of the
Rio de Ulva, which runs from Tunguragua into the
Pastasa. The position of this volcano corresponds
to the Quilindaia of most maps—a name which
does not occur on Guzman’s, nor is it known to any
of the actual residents of the country. A group of
mountains running to north-east, and terminating in
' The apical angle of Tunguragua—the steepest mountain I ever climbed—
is 925°, and the slope 434°.
496 NOTES, OF A BOTANESS CHAP.
the volcano, is specified as the Cordillera de los
Mulatos: it is separated from Cotopaxi by the
Valle Vicioso.
2. El Volcan de las Margasitas, south-east by
east from Los Mulatos, and a little east of north
from the mouth of. the Rio Werde @ranae
‘“Margasitas” (more properly Marquesitas) corre-
‘sponds nearly to the term ‘‘pyrites,” and is a general
name for the sulphates of iron, copper, etc.
3. Zunchu-urcu, a smaller volcano than Mar-
gasitas, and at a short distance south-south-east of
it. ‘‘Zunchu” is the’Quichua term for mitatontare:
4. Siete-bocas, a large mountain, with seven
mouths vomiting flame, south-west by south from
Margasitas, west by south from Zunchu. Its
southern slope is the Nevado del Atilis.
5. Gran Volcan del Topo, or Yurag-Llanganati,
nearly east from Siete-bocas and south-west from
Zunchu. A tall snowy peak at the head of. the
river Topo, and the same as I saw from Cotald. It
is the only one of the group which rises to perpetual
snow, though there are many others rarely clear of
snow; hence its second name Yurag (White)
Llanganati.’ |
[This mountain is partly shown on the extreme
right margin of the map here given. |]
The last four volcanoes are all near each other,
and form part of what Guzman calls the Cordillera
de Yurag-urcu, or Llanganatis of the Topo.
North-east from the Volcan del Topo, and
running from south-east to north-west, is the Cor-
1 Villavicensio gives its height as 6520 varas (17,878 English feet) in his
Geografia del Ecuador, from a measurement (as he says) of Guzman, but does
not inform us where he obtained his information.
= HIDDEN TREASURE 497
dillera de Yana-urcu, or the Llanganatis of the
Curaray, consisting chiefly of a wooded mountain
with many summits, called Rundu-uma-urcu or
Sacha-Llanganati.
6. Jorobado or the Hunchback, south-south-
west half west from Yurac-Llanganati, and between
tic tiver Topo and the head of the greater Rio
Verde.
I have conversed with people who have visited
the Llanganati district as far as forty years back,
and all assure me they have never seen any active
volcano there; yet this by no means proves that
Guzman invented the mouths vomiting flame which
appear on his map. The Abbé Velasco, writing in
1770, says of Tunguragua, “It is doubtful whether
this mountain be a volcano or not,” and yet three
years afterwards it burst forth in one of the most
violent eruptions ever known. I gather from the
perusal of old documents that it continued to emit
smoke and flame occasionally until the year 1780.
Many people have assured me that smoke is still
seen sometimes to issue from the crater. I was
doubtful about the fact, until, having passed the
night of November 10, 1857, at the height of about
8000 feet on the northern slope of the mountain, I
distinctly saw at daybreak (from 54 to 64% a.m.)
smoke issuing from the eastern edge of the trun-
cated apex.” In ascending on the same side, along
the course of the great stream of lava that over-
whelmed the farm of Juivi and blocked up the
1 Fitstoria de Quito.
2 The same morning (Nov. I1), at 4 A.M., I observed a great many
shooting-stars in succession, all becoming visible at the same point (about 40°
from the zenith), proceeding along the arc of a great circie drawn through
Orion’s Belt and Sirius, and disappearing behind the cone of Tunguragua.
MOA TI Bs wie
498 NOTES OF A BOTANIST canes
Pastasa, below the mouth of the Patate, for eight
months, we came successively on six small fumaroli,
from which a stream of thin smoke is constantly
issuing. People who live on the opposite side of
the valley assert that they sometimes see flame
hovering over these holes by night. The inhabit-
ants of the existing farm of Juivi complain to me
that they have been several times alarmed of late
(especially during the months of October and
November 1859) by the mountain ‘“bramando”
(roaring) at night. The volcano is plainly, there-
fore, only dormant, not extinct, and both Tungu-
ragua and the Llanganatis may any day resume
their activity.
| Here follows a rather elaborate description of the
various rivers and their tributaries as shown on the
map, which, being of little interest to the general
reader, are omitted. Of the map generally, Spruce
makes the following observation :—|
As the great mineral districts of Llanganati,
occupying the northern half of the map, was
repeatedly travelled over by Guzman himself, it is
fuller of minute detail than the rest; and I am
assured by those who have visited the actual
localities that not one of them is misplaced on the
map; but the southern portion is much dislocated ;
and, as I have traversed the whole of it, I will
proceed to make some remarks and corrections on
this part of the map.
| As these corrections are accessible to all specially
interested, and will no doubt be made use of in
compiling future maps of Ecuador, I omit these
also, and pass on to a description of the map itself,
and to the remarkable document which it illustrates. |
XXVIII HIDDEN TREASURE 499
The parts of the map covered with forest are
represented by scattered trees, among which the
following forms are easily recognisable :—
No. 1 is the Wax palm (Palma de Ramos of the
Quitonians; Ceroxylon andicola, H. et B.), which
I have seen on Tunguragua up to 10,000 feet.
Nos. 2 and 3 are Tree-ferns (Helechos)—the former
a Cyathea, whose trunk (sometimes 4o feet high)
is much used for uprights in houses; the latter an
_ Alsophila with a prickly trunk, very frequent in
the forest of Canelos about the Rio Verde. No. 4
is the Aliso (Betula acuminata, Kunth), one of the
most abundant trees in the Quitonian Andes; it
descends on the beaches of the Pastasa to near 4000
feet, and ascends on the paramos of Tunguragua to
12,000. But there is one tree (represented thus +),
occupying on the map a considerable range of
altitude, which I cannot make out, unless it be
a Podocarpus, of which I saw a single tree on
Mount Abitagua, though a species of the same
genus is abundant at the upper limit of the forest
in some parts of the Western Cordillera. A large
spreading tree is figured here and there in the
forest of Canelos which may be the Tocte—a true
Walnut (Juglans), with an edible fruit rather larger
than that of the European species. The remaining
trees represented, especially those towards the
upper limit of the forest, are mostly too much alike
to admit of the supposition that any particular
species was intended by them.
éX
& Ss
4
500 NOTES OF A BOTANIST cae
The abbreviations made use of in the map are:
C° for Cerro (mountain), Cord* for Cordillera (ridge),
Mont* for Montana (forest), A° for Arroyo (rivulet),
L* for Laguna, and C* for Cocha (lake) tar sta
Farallén (peak or promontory), H* for Hacienda
(farm), and C' for Corral (cattle or sheep-fold).
Mule-tracks (called by the innocent natives
‘“‘roads’”’) are represented by double red lines, and
footpaths by single lines. I have copied them by
dotted lines.
Having now passed in review the principal
physical features of the district, let us return to the
Derrotero of Valverde, of which the following is a
translation. The introductory remark or title (not
in very choice Castilian) is that of the copyist :
“ The. ‘ Derrotero’ or Guide to the. Middem=irea-
sure of the Incas. Translated by Richard Spruce.”
Caribe
GUIDE OR ROUTE WHICH VALVERDE LEFT IN SPAIN,
WHERE DEATH OVERTOOK HIM, HAVING GONE
FROM THE MOoUNTAINS OF LLANGANATI, WHICH
HE ENTERED MANY TIMES, AND CARRIED OFF A
GREAT QUANTITY OF GOLD; AND - em homme
COMMANDED THE CORREGIDORS OF “TACUNGA
AND AMBATO TO SEARCH FOR THE [REASURE:
WHICH ORDER AND GUIDE ARE PRESERVED IN
ONE OF THE OFFICES OF TACUNGA
THE GUIDE
“ Placed in the town of Pillaro, ask for the farm
of Moya, and sleep (the first night) a good distance
above it; and ask there for the mountain of Guapa,
XXVIII Po WEIN ih ASU RE 50!
from whose top, if the day be fine, look to the east,
so that thy back be towards the town of Ambato,
and from thence thou shalt perceive the three
Cerros Llanganati, in the form of a triangle, on
whose declivity there is a lake, made by hand, into:
which the ancients threw the gold they had pre-
pared for the ransom of the Inca when they heard
of his death. From the same Cerro Guapa thou
mayest see also the forest, and in it a clump of
Sangurimas standing out of the said forest, and
another clump which they call Flechas (arrows), and
these clumps are the principal mark for the which
thou shalt aim, leaving them a little on the left
hand. Go forward from Guapa in the direction
and with the signals indicated, and a good way
ahead, having passed some cattle-farms, thou shalt
come on a wide morass, over which thou must
cross, and coming out on the other side thou shalt
see on the left hand a short way off a jucal on a
hill-side, through which thou must pass. Having
got through the jucal, thou wilt see two small lakes
called ‘Los Anteojos” (the spectacles), from having
between them a point of land like to a nose.
“From this place thou mayest again descry the
Cerros Llanganati, the same as thou sawest them
from the top of Guapa, and I warn thee to leave
the said lakes on the left, and that in front of the
pomt.or “nose there is a plain, which is the
sleeping-place. There thou must leave thy horses,
for they can go no farther. Following now on foot
in the same direction, thou shalt come on a great
black lake, the which leave on thy left hand, and
beyond it seek to descend along the hill-side in such
a way that thou mayest reach a ravine, down which
502 NOTES OFA BOTAN CHAP.
comes a waterfall: and here thou shalt find a bridge
of three poles, or if it do not still exist thou shalt
put another in the most convenient place and pass
over it. And having gone on a little way in the
forest, seek out the hut which served to sleep in
or the remains of it. Having passed the night
there, go on thy way the following day through
the forest in the same direction, till thou reach
another deep dry ravine, across which thou must
throw a bridge and pass over it slowly and
cautiously, for the ravine is very deepy thatmie. 1
thou succeed not in finding the pass which exists.
Go forward and look for the signs of another
sleeping-place, which, I assure thee, thou canst not
fail to see in the fragments of pottery and other
marks, because the Indians are continually passing
along there. Go on thy way, and thou shalt see a
mountain which is all of margasitas (pyrites), the
which leave on thy left hand, and I warn thee that
thou must go round it in this fashion @. On
this side thou wilt find a pajonal (pasture) in a
small plain, which having crossed thou wilt come
on a cafion between two hills, which is the Way of
the Inca. From thence as thou goest along thou
shalt see the entrance of the socabdon (tunnel),
which is in the form of a church porch. Having
come through the cafion and gone a good distance
beyond, thou wilt perceive a cascade which descends
from an offshoot of the Cerro Llanganati and runs
into a quaking-bog on the right hand; and without
passing the stream in the said bog there is much
gold, so that putting in thy hand what thou shalt
gather at the bottom is grains of gold. To ascend
the mountain, leave the bog and go along to the
XXVIII VUBIDIEIN Tike ys Osea e. 503
right, and pass above the cascade, going round the
offshoot of the mountain. And if by chance the
mouth of the socabén be closed with certain herbs
which they call ‘Salvaje,’ remove them, and thou
wilt find the entrance. And on the left-hand side
of the mountain thou mayest see the ‘ Guayra’ (for
thus the ancients called the furnace where they
founded metals), which is nailed with golden nails."
Amc to reach the third mountain, if thou canst not
pass in front of the socabon, it is the same thing
to pass behind it, for the water of the lake falls
into it.
“If thou lose thyself in the forest, seek the river,
follow it on the right bank ; lower down take to the
beach, and thou wilt reach the cafion in such sort
that, although thou seek to pass it, thou wilt not
find where; climb, therefore, the mountain on the
right hand, and in this manner thou canst by no
means miss thy way.”
[Having read this remarkable document, we
shall better understand Spruce’s account of the
various attempts to discover the treasure, the chief
routes followed being marked by red lines. |
With this document and the map before us,
fey us trace the attempts that have been made
to reach the gold thrown away by the subjects of
Atahuallpa as useless when it could no longer be
applied to the purpose of ransoming him from the
Spaniards.
Pillaro is a somewhat smaller town than Ambato,
and stands on higher ground, on the opposite side
? (Query—sprinkled with gold.—ED. ]
504 NOTES OF A BOTANTSa CHAP.
of the river Patate, at only a few miles’ distance,
though the journey thither is much lengthened by
having to pass the deep quebrada of the Patate,
which occupies a full hour. The farm of Moya still
exists; and the Cerro de Guapa is clearly visible to
east-north-east from where I am writing. The
three Llanganatis seen from the top of Guapa are
supposed to be the peaks Margasitas, Zunchu, and
el Volcan del Topo. The “Sangurimias im die
forest are described to me as trees with white
foliage ; but I cannot make out whether they be a
species of Cecropia or of some allied genus. The
‘““Flechas” are probably the gigantic arrow-cane,
Gynerium saccharoides (Arvoré de frecha of the
Brazilians), whose flower-stalk is the usual material
for the Indian's arrows.
The morass (Cienega de Cubillin), the Jucal,’
and the lakes called ‘“‘ Anteojos,” with the nose of
land between them, are all exactly where Valverde
places them, as is also the great black lake (Yana-
cocha) which we must leave on the left hand.
Beyond the lake we reach the waterfall (Cascada y
Golpe de Limpis Pongo), of which the noise is
described to me as beyond all proportion to the
smallness of the volume of water. Near the water-
fall a cross is set up with the remark underneath,
‘Muerte del Padre Longo”—this being the point
1 Juco is the name of a tall, solid-stemmed grass, usually about 20 feet
high, of which I have never seen the flower, but I take it to be a species of
Gynerium, differing from G. saccharotdes in the leaves being uniformly disposed
on all sides and throughout the length of the stem, whereas in G. saccharozdes
the stem is leafless below and the leaves are distichous and crowded together
(almost equitant) near the apex of the stem. The Juco grows exclusively in
the temperate and cool region, from 6000 feet upwards, and is the universal
material for laths and rods in the construction of houses in the Quitonian
Andes.
XXVIII ENUDIONE IN) Sieyasn Oa )e) 505
from which the expedition first spoken of regressed
in consequence of the Padre’s sudden disappearance.
Beyond this point the climate begins to be warm ;
@u@eiitere are parrots in the forest. The deep dry
quebrada (Quebrada honda), which can be passed
only at one point—difficult to find, unless by throw-
ing a bridge over it—is exactly where it should be ;
but beyond the mountain of Margasitas, which is
shortly afterwards reached, no one has been able
to proceed with certainty. The Derrotero directs
it to be left on the left hand; but the explanatory
hieroglyph puzzles everybody, as it seems to leave
the mountain on the right. Accordingly, nearly all
who have attempted to follow the Derrotero have
gone to the left of Margasitas, and have failed to
find any of the remaining marks signalised by
Valverde. The concluding direction to those who ~
lose their way in the forest has also been followed ;
and truly, after going along the right bank of the
Curaray for some distance, a stream running
between perpendicular cliffs (Cafada honda y
Rivera de los Llanganatis) is reached, which no
one has been able to cross; but though from this
point the mountain to the right has been climbed,
no better success has attended the adventurers.
“Socabén” is the name given in the Andes to
any tunnel, natural or artificial, and also to the
mouth of a mine. Perhaps the latter is meant by
Valverde, though he does not direct us to enter it.
The “Salvaje” which might have grown over and
concealed the entrance of the Socabén is 77/dandsza
usneordes, which frequently covers trees and rocks
with a beard 30 or 40 feet long.
Comparing the map with the Derrotero, I should
506 NOTES OF 4A BOTANISM CHAP,
conclude the cafion, “which is the Way of the
Inca, to be the upper part of the Riveraydesiae
Llanganatis. This cafion can hardly be artificial,
like the hollow way I have seen running down
through the hills and woods on the western side of
the Cordillera, from the great road of Azuay, nearly
to the river Yaguachi. ‘‘Guayra,” said by Valverde
to be the ancient name for a smelting-furnace, is
nowadays applied only to the wind. ‘The conclud-
ing clause of this sentence, “que son tachoneados de
oro,” is considered by all competent persons to be
a mistake for ‘“‘que es tachoneado de oro.”
If Margasitas be considered the first mountain
of the three to which Valverde refers, then the
Tembladal or Bog, out of which Valverde extracted
his wealth, the Socabén and the Guayra are in the
second mountain, and the lake wherein the ancients
threw their gold in the third.
Difference of opinion among the gold-searchers
as to the route to be pursued from Margasitas
would appear also to have produced quarrels, for
we find a steep hill east of that mountain, and
separated from it by Mosquito Narrows (Chushpi
Pongo), called by Guzman “El Penon@destas
Discordias.”
If we retrace our steps from Margasitas till we
reach the western margin of Yana-cocha, we find
another track branching off to northward, crossing
the river Zapala at a point marked Salto de Cobos,
and then following the northern shore of the lake.
Then follow two steep ascents, called respectively
“La Escalera” and “La Subida de Ripalda, game
the track ends suddenly at the river coming from
the Inca’s Fountain (La Pila del Inca), with the
| Aoi
XXVIII ee NS Ree AS WIRE. 5O/
remark, ‘“Sublevacion de los Indios— Salto de
Guzman,” giving us to understand that the exploring
party had barely crossed the river when the Indians
rose against them, and that Guzman himself re-
passed the river at a bound. These were probably
Indians taken from the towns to carry loads and
work the mines; they can hardly have been of the
nation of the Curarayes, who inhabited the river
somewhat lower down.
A little north and east of the Anteojos there is
another route running a little farther northward and
passing through the great morass of Illubamba, at
the base of Los Mulatos, where we find marked El
Atolladero (the Bog) de Guzman, probably because
he had slipped up to the neck in it. Beyond this
the track continues north-east, and after passing the
same stream as in the former route, but nearer to its
source in the Inca’s Fountain, there is a tambo called
San Nicolas, and a cross erected near it marks the
place where one of the miners met his death (Muerte
de iomero). -Another larger cross (La Cruz de
Romero) is erected farther on at the top of a basaltic
mountain called El Sotillo. At this point the track
enters the Cordillera de las Margasitas, and on
heachino a little to the east of the meridian of
Zunchu-urcu, there is a tambo with a chapel, to which
is appended the remark, ‘“‘ Destacamento de Ripalda
y retirada per Orden Superior.” Beyond the fact
thus indicated, that one Ripalda had been stationed
there in command of a detachment of troops, and
had afterwards retired at the order of his superiors,
I can give no information.
Ginere are many mines about this station,
especially those of Romero just to the north, those
508 NOTES OF A BOTANIST |e
of Viteri to the east, and several mines of copper
and silver which are not assigned to any particular
owner. Not far to the east of the Destacamento is
another tambo, with a cross, where I find written,
‘“ Discordia y Consonancia con Guzman,” showing
that at this place Guzman’s fellow-miners quarrelled
with him and were afterwards reconciled. East-
north-east from this, and at the same distance from
it as the Destacamento, is the last tambo on this
route, called El Sumadal, on the banks of a lake, near
the Rio de las Flechas. Beyond that river, and
north of the Curaray, are the river and forests of
Gancaya. :
Another track, running more to the north than
any of the foregoing, sets out from the village of San
Miguel, and passes between Cotopaxi and Los
Mulatos. Several tambos or huts for resting in
are marked on the route, which ends abruptly near
the Minas de Pinel (north-east from Los Mulatos),
with the following remark by the author—“ Con-
spiracion contra Conrado y su accelerado regreso,”
so that Conrado ran away to escape from a con-
spiracy formed against him, but who he was, or who
were his treacherous companions, it would now
perhaps be impossible to ascertain.
Along these tracks travelled those who searched
for mines of silver and other metals, and also for the
gold thrown away by the subjects of the Inca. That
the last was their principal object is rendered obvious
by the carefulness with which every lake has been
sounded that was at all likely to contain the supposed
deposit.’
! The soundings of the lakes are in Spanish varas, each near 33 English
inches.
XXVIII IDEN TREASURE 509
The mines of Llanganati, after having been
neglected for half a century, are now being sought
out again with the intention of working them; but
there is no single person at the present day able to
employ the labour and capital required for success-
fully working a silver mine, and mutual confidence
is at so low an ebb in this country that companies
never hold together long. Besides this, the gold of
the Incas never ceases to haunt people’s memories ;
and at this moment I am informed that a party of
explorers who started from Tacunga imagine they
have found the identical Green Lake of Llanganati,
and are preparing to drain it dry. If we admit the
truth of the tradition that the ancients smelted gold
in Llanganati, it is equally certain that they extracted
the precious metal in the immediate neighbourhood ;
and if the Socabon of Valverde cannot at this day
be discovered, it is known to every one that gold
exists at a short distance, and possibly in consider-
able quantity, if the Ecuadoreans would only take
the trouble to search for it and not leave that task
to the wild Indians, who are content if, by scooping
up the gravel with their hands, they can get together
enough gold to fill the quill which the white man
has given them as the measure of the value of the
axes and lance-heads he has supplied to them on
EPUSt,
Mine gold region of Canelos begins on the
extreme east of the map of Guzman, in streams rising
in the roots of Llanganati and flowing to the Pastasa
and Curaray,’ the principal of which are the Bom-
bonasa and Villano. These rivers and their smaller
tributaries have the upper part of their course in
1 The name Curaray itself may be derived from ‘ curi,” gold.
510 NOTES OF 4 BOT ANIS® CHAP,
deep ravines, furrowed in soft alluvial sandstone
rock, wherein blocks and pebbles of quartz are inter-
spersed, or interposed in distinct layers. Towards
their source they are obstructed by large masses of
quartz and other rocks; but as we descend the
stones grow fewer, smaller, and more rounded, until
towards the mouth of the Bombonasa, and thence
throughout the Pastasa, not a single stone of the
smallest size is to be found. The beaches of the
Pastasa consist almost entirely of powdered pumice
brought down from the volcano Sangay by the river
Palora. When I ascended the Bombonasa in the
company of two Spaniards who had had some
experience in mining, we washed for gold in the
mouth of most of the rivulets that had a gravelly
bottom, as also on some beaches of the river itself,
and never failed to extract a few fragments of that
metal. All these streams are liable to sudden and
violent floods. I once saw the Bombonasa at Puca-
yacu, where it is not more than 4o yards wide, rise
18 feet in six hours. Every such flood brings down
large masses of loose cliff, and when it subsides
(which it generally does in a few hours) the Indians
find a considerable quantity of gold deposited in the
bed of the stream.
The gold of Canelos consists almost solely of
small particles (called ‘‘chispas,” sparks), but as
the Indians never dig down to the base of the wet
gravel, through which the larger fragments of gold
necessarily percolate by their weight, it is not to be
wondered at that they rarely encounter any such.
Two attempts have been made, by parties of
Frenchmen, to work the gold-washings of Canelos
systematically. One of them failed in consequence
XXVIII HIDDEN TREASURE Slt
of a quarrel which broke out among the miners
themselves and resulted in the death of one of
them. In the other, the river (the Lliquino) rose
suddenly on them by night and carried off their
canoes (in which a quantity of roughly-washed gold
was heaped up), besides the Long Tom and all their
other implements.
I close this memoir by an explanation of the
QOuichua terms which occur most frequently on the
map.
Spanish authors use the vowels w and o almost indiscriminately
in writing Quichua names, although the latter sound does not
exist in that language; and in some words which have become
grafted on the Spanish, as spoken in Peru and Ecuador, the o has
supplanted the w not only in the orthography but in the actual
pronunciation, as, for instance, in Pongo and Cocha, although the
Indians still say ‘‘Chimbu-rasu,” and not ‘‘ Chimborazo ”—‘“Cutu-
pacsi” or “Cutu-pagsi,” and not “Cotopaxi.” The sound of the
English z is indicated in Spanish by gw or Aw; that of the French
j does not exist in Spanish, and is represented by /, whose
sound is somewhat similar; thus ‘‘ Lhgua” is pronounced “ Jiwa.”
“‘ Llanganati” is now pronounced with the Spanish sound of the
“i, but whether this be the original mode is doubtful. An un-
accented terminal e (as in Spanish “‘ verde”) is exceedingly rare in
Indian languages, and has mostly been incorrectly used for a
short z; thus, if we wish to represent the exact pronunciation, we
should write “Casiquiari,” ‘‘ Ucayali,” and ‘“ Llanganati ”—vzo¢
Casiquiare, Ucayale, Llanganate.
“ Llanganati” may come from “llanga,” to touch, because the
group of mountains called by that name touches on the sources of
the rivers all round ; thus, on Guzman’s map, we find ‘‘Llanganatis
del Rio Verde ”—“ Llanganatis del Topo”—‘ Llanganatis del
Curaray,” for those sections of the group which respectively touch
on the Rio Verde, the Topo, and the Curaray. The following are
examples of the mode of using the verb “llanga.” ‘ Ama llan-
gaichu!”—“ Touch it not!” “Imapag HNancdngui?”—‘“‘ Why do
you touch it”; or “Pitag lla4ncaynirca?”-—‘‘Who told you to
touch it?” And the answer might be “ Llancanatag chari-cdrca
Nlancarcani.”—“ [Thinking] it might be touched, I touched it.”
It is to be noted that the frequent use of the letter g, in place
of ¢ 1s a provincialism of the Quitonian Andes, where (for
instance) they mostly say “Inga” instead of “Inca.” But in
512 NOTES OF A BOTANISS CHAP.
Maynas the ¢ is used almost to the exclusion of the g; thus
“vurag,” white, and ‘‘pitag,” who, are pronounced respectively
“vurac”” and “pitac” in Maynas.
“Tunguragua” seems to come from “tungtiri,” the ankle-joint,
which is a prominence certainly, though scarcely more like the
right-angled cone of Tunguragua than the obtuse-angled cone of
Cotopaxi is like a wen (“coto” or “cutu”).
Of the termination “agua” (pron. “awa”) I can give no
explanation.
“Cungtiri,” in Quichua, is the knee; thus an Indian would say
“Tungtiri-manta cungtil-cama Ilustirishcani urmashpa,” ze. ‘In
falling (‘urmdshpa’) I have scrubbed off the skin from the ankle
tomtite knee:
Among rustics of mixed race, whose language partakes almost
as much of Quichua as of Spanish, it is common to hear such
expressions as ‘‘ De tunguri 4 cunguri es una cola laga.”—“ From
the ankle to the knee is a continuous sore.”
The following words occur repeatedly on the map :—
“Ashpa” (in Maynas “Allpa”), earth. ‘Urcu,” mountain.
Rumi,” stone, | ““Cocha (eueha). dlalcet
‘“Vacu,” river. ‘‘ Ucsha,” grass or grassy place (“Pajonal”
Sp.). ‘*Pdéngo (pungu),” door or narrow entrance.
“Cuichu,” corner. “‘U’ma,” head. “ Paccha, “eataracn
“Cur,” gold. “Ctilqui,” “silver. “ Alquimita;2sceppen,
‘*Ushpa,” ashes.
“Chiri,” cold. ‘“ Ytinga,” warm, from which the Spaniards
have formed the diminutive ‘“ Yungtilla,” warmish, applied to
many sites where the sugar-cane begins to flourish.
“Viirag,” white. “Yana,” black. “Ptica,” redjy= @aiitan®
yellow.
“T’shcai,” two; ex. “I’shcai-cuauqui,” the Two rothers aa
cloven peak to the east of Los Mulatos. ‘“Chunga,” ten; ex.
“Chunga-uma,” a peak with ten points, a little to south of “ Ishcai-
guauqui.” “Parca,” doubie; thus a hill which seems made up of
two hills united is called ‘‘ Parca-urcu.”
“Angas,” a hawk. ‘ Ambdtu,” a kind of toad.
“Sacha,” forest. “‘Caspi,” tree. “ Yuiras,” herb. “@mimaimay
the “Chenopodium Quinoa,” cultivated for ‘its edible seed.
‘‘Pujin,” hawthorn (various species of Crataegus); thus “ Montana
de Pujines,” Hawthorn Forest; “Cerro Pujin el chico,” Little
Hawthorn-hill. ‘‘Cubilifn,” a sort of Lupine, found only on the
highest paramos. It gives its name to a long ridge of the Eastern
Cordillera, mostly covered with snow, extending from Condorasto
and El Altar towards Sangay. ‘“‘Totorra,” a large bulrush from
which mats are made; hence ‘ Totorral,” a marsh full of bul-
Tushes. - oalta,smaize:
‘““Tépo” is the name given in Maynas to the Raft-wood trees,
XXVIII AID DEN TREASURE 53
species of Ochroma (of the N.O. Bombacez). They begin to be
found as soon as we reach a hot climate, say from 3000 feet
elevation downwards.
“Rundnu,” sleet; thus “Rundu-uma,” Sleety Head. ‘“ Rasu”
is snow, and occurs in “Chimbu-rasu,” “ Caraguai-rasu” (Car-
guairago), and many other names. The vulgar name for snow as
it falls is “‘ Papa-cara,” z.e. potato peelings.
“‘Pucara ” indicates the site of a hill-fort of the Incas, of which
a great many are scattered through the Quitonian Andes.
@RiITICAL NOTE BY THE EDITOR
The preceding account of the various routes of
the gold-seekers among the Llanganati Mountains
leads to the conclusion that only the earliest—that
led by the Corregidor of Tacunga and the friar
Padre Longo—made any serious attempt to follow
ffteeexplicit directions of the ‘“ Guide,’ since the
others departed from it so early in the journey as
tiesoreat black lake: “‘ Yana Cocha,’ going to the
left instead of to the right of it. No doubt they
were either deceived by Indian guides who assured
them that they knew an easier way, or went in
search of rich mines rather than of buried treasure.
The first party, however, and those who afterwards
followed it, kept to the route, as clearly described, to
the sleeping-place beyond the deep ravine where
Padre Longo was lost; but beyond this point they
went wrong by crossing the river, and thus leaving
the district of the three volcanoes, which twice at
the beginning of the ‘‘ Guide” are indicated as the
locality of the treasure.
Although no route to these mountains is marked
on the map, Spruce tells us that other parties did
VOL. I 2 ib
Sid NOTES OF A BOTANIST are.
take the proper course, and found the “deep dry
ravine ” (marked on the mapas ‘“‘ Quebrada honda ”),
and after it the mountain of Margasitas; but here
they were all puzzled by the “ Guide” directing
them to leave the mountain on their left while the
hieroglyph seems to leave it on the right, and fol-
lowing this latter instruction they have failed after-
wards to find any of the other marks given by
Valverde in his ‘‘ Guide.” Spruce himself suggests
that the upper part of the Rivera de los Llanganatis
(which is outside the portion of the map here given)
is the ‘‘ way of the Inca” referred to in the “‘ Guide.”
But this is going quite beyond the area of the three
mountains, so clearly stated as the objective of the
Guide,
It seems to me, however, that there is really no
contradiction between the “ Guide” and the map,
and that the route so clearly pointed out in the
former has not yet been thoroughly explored to its
termination, as I will now endeavour to show.
After crossing the deep dry ravine (‘‘ Quebrada
honda” of the map), we are directed to ‘‘ go forward
and look for the signs of another sleeping-place.”
Then, the next day—‘‘ Go on thy way, and thou
shalt see a mountain which is all of margasitas, the
which leave on thy left hand.”” But looking at the
map we shall see that the mountain will now be on
the right hand, supposing we have gone on in the
same direction as before, crossing the deep ravine.
The next words, however, explain this apparent
contradiction: they are—‘‘and I warn thee that
thou must go round it in this fashion,” with the ex-
planatory hieroglyph, which, if we take the circle to
-be the mountain and the right-hand termination of
xXVMI HIDDEN TREASURE 515
the curve the point already reached, merely implies
that you are to turn back and ascend the mountain
in a winding course till you reach the middle of the
south side of it. So far you have been going through
forest, but now you are told—‘ On this side thou
wilt find a pajonal (pasture) in a small plain” (show-
ing that you have reached a considerable height),
‘““which having crossed thou wilt come on a cafion
between two hills, which is the way of the Inca.”
This cafion is clearly the upper part of the ‘‘ Chushpi
pongo,” while the ‘‘ Encafiado de Sacha pamba” is
almost certainly the beginning of the “way of the
Inca.” The explorers will now have reached the
area bounded by the three volcanoes of the ‘‘ Guide ”
—the Margasitas will be behind them, Zunchu-
urcu on his right, and the great volcano Topo in
front, and it is from this point only that they will be
in a position to look out for the remaining marks of
the “ Route "—the socabon or tunnel ‘‘in the form
ofachurch porch,” and evidently still far above them,
the cascade and the quaking-bog, passing to the
right of which is the way to ‘‘ ascend the mountain,”
going “above the cascade” and “ round the offshoot
of the mountain’ to reach the socabon. Then you
will be able to find the Guayra (or furnace), and to
feaem the “third mountain,’ which must be the
Topo, you are to pass the socabén “either in front
or behind it, for the water of the lake falls into it.”
This evidently means the lake mentioned in the
first sentence of the “Guide” as being the place
where the gold prepared for the ransom of the Inca
was hidden. The last sentence of the “ Guide”
refers to what must be done if you miss the turning
shown by the hieroglyph, in which case you have
516 NOTES OF A BOTANIS® CHAP.
to follow the river-bank till you come to the cafion
(on the map marked ‘‘ Chushpi pongo”), up the right-
hand side of which you must climb the mountain,
“and in this manner thou canst by no means miss
thy way”; which the map clearly shows, since it
leads up to the “ Encafiado,” which is shown by the
other and more easy route to be the “ way of the
Inca:
J submit, therefore, that the ‘“‘Guide” is equally
minute and definite in its descriptions throughout,
that it agrees everywhere with Guzman’s map, and
that, as it is admitted to be accurate in every detail
for more than three-fourths of the whole distance,
there is every probability that the last portion is
equally accurate. It will, of course, be objected that,
if so, why did not Guzman himself, who made the
map, also complete the exploration of the route and
make the discovery? That, of course, we cannot
tell; but many reasons may be suggested as highly
probable. Any such exploration of a completely
uninhabited region must be very costly, and is
always liable to fail near the end from lack of food,
or from the desertion of the Indian porters when
there was doubt about the route. Guzman had
evidently been diverted from the search by what
seemed the superior promise of silver and gold
mines, from. which he may have hoped to obtain
wealth enough to carry out the other expedition
with success. This failing, he apparently returned
home, and may have been endeavouring to obtain
recruits and funds for a new effort when his accidental
death occurred.
It is to be noted that beyond the point where the
hieroglyph puzzled all the early explorers there is a
XXVIII HIDDEN TREASURE Sil
complete absence of detail in Guzman’s map, which
contains nothing that might not have been derived
from observations made from the heights north of
the river, and from information given by wandering
Indians.
It is also to be noted that only four sleeping-places
are mentioned in the ‘“ Guide,” so that the whole
journey occupied five days. The last of the four
sleeping-places is before reaching the spot where
the path turns back round the Margasitas Mountain,
so that the whole distance from this place to the
“lake made by hand” must be less than twenty
miles, a distance which would take us to the nearer
slopes of the great Topo Mountain. [n this part of
the route the marks given in the ‘“ Guide” are so
many and so well-defined that it cannot be difficult
to follow them, especially as the path indicated
seems to be mostly above the forest-region.
For the various reasons now adduced, I am con-
vinced that the ‘‘ Route” of Valverde is a genuine
and thoroughly trustworthy document, and that by
closely following the directions therein given, it may
still be possible for an explorer of means and energy,
with the assistance of the local authorities, to solve
the interesting problem of the Treasure of the Incas.
The total distance of the route, following all its
sinuosities, cannot exceed ninety or a hundred miles
at most, fully three-fourths of which must be quite
easy to follow, while the remainder is very clearly
described. Two weeks would therefore suffice for
the whole expedition.
I have written this in the hope that some one who
speaks Spanish fluently, has had some experience
518 NOTES OF A BOTANIST ~cuxxae
~
of the country, and is possessed of the necessary »
means, may be induced to undertake this very in-— 4
teresting and even romantic piece of adventurous
travel. To such a persen it need be) butte tem
months’ holiday.
PeOsoktkRY OF NATIVE NAMES’
ABACATE, AGUACATE. An oily fruit; cats fond of it; good for epilepsy.
ABILLA, JABILLA. A twiner with large seeds producing a bitter oil for
lamps on the Huallaga river.
ACARICUARA. Swartzta callistemon. Curious perforated trunks; a dye
_. from the bark.
AGUACATE. A tree (undetermined) of the fruit of which cats and many wild
animals are very fond, It is very nutritious, and the seeds produce an
oil very similar to that of olives.
AJARI. Tephrosia toxicaria (Leguminosz).
ALCORNOQUES (cork trees). Cuvratella Americana.
ALDEA. A village.
ALGARROBO (Venez.)=JUTAHI (Braz.). Hymenzea sp. (Leg.). Fruit a
remedy in asthma ; seeds give a fine varnish ; and incense.
ANAPE. The Jacana, a long-toed water-fowl (Parra jacana).
ANAPE-YAPONA. Victoria regia (Nympheeaceze). Jacana’s oven.
ANDIROBA OIL. From Carapfa Gutanenszs (Meliacez).
ANGELIM. Andira sp. An excellent timber-tree.
ANIL. Indigofera anil, Produces blue colour used in painted cuyas.
APIRANGA. A fruit. Mouriria Apiranga (Melastomacee).
ARAPARI (tree). Fine wood for cabinet work, but small (Wauclea guzanenszis),
AREGA. An acid berry. Pszdzwm ovatifolium (Myrtacez).
ARIPECURU. A branch of the Trombetas river.
ARVORE DE CHAPETE, Gustavia Brastliensts.
Assaf. A drink from fruit of Euterpe oleracea (Palmacez),
BacABA. (Enocarpus sp. (Palmaceze). Fruits yield a nutritious drink or food.
‘BACUARI-ASSU. Platinza ins¢ignizs (Clusiaceze), Edible fruit.
BaunA. Root of a climber (Menispermacez), called also ‘‘maniocca acu”
(great mandiocca), larger and more poisonous than mandiocca, but
makes equally good farinha and cakes, and is much used on the Purts
and Upper Amazon (see vol. i. p. 215).
BLACK PITCH. Clusiaceze.
BoGa-BOGA (Peru), CAIwA (Maynas). Cucurbitaceze. A gourd with seeds
of an extraordinary rectangular shape,
BoMBONAJE. Carludovica sp, (Pandanacez), Leaves used for making
Panama hats.
BRrEO BRANCO, White pitch. Icica sp.
Brusca (Venez.). Cassta occedentalis. Bitter root ; good in fevers.
1 This list comprises all the names I have met with in Spruce’s Journals and MSS. They
may be useful to other explorers or collectors. —Ep.
519
520 NOTES*OF “A BOTANIS#
Caap{. Banisterta caapi (Malpighiacexe), An intoxicant.
CAARURU. Podostemon sp. Used for food by the Indians ; ashes give salt.
CAATINGA. Low forest—white forest.
CACHIMBO. A pipe.
Capf. Phytelephus sp. (Palmaceze). Vegetable Ivory nut.
CAIMBE. Curatella Americana (Dilleniacez).
Caju (=MEREY, Venez.), Axnacardium occidentale. Cashew nut.
CAPOEIRAS. Second growth woods, on deserted farms, etc., in virgin forest.
CARAIPE. Licania sp. (Chrysobalanez). Pottery tree.
CaRAJURU. Bignonia chica. A red dye.
CARAJURU PIRANGA. Bignonia sp. Produces red colour for cuyas.
CARANA. Jauritia carana (Palmacee).
CaRANAL. JAauritia aculeata (Palmacez).
CarAPANAS (L.G.). Mosquitoes.
CARIAQUITO. Lantana Camara. Leaves, root, and flowers medicinal.
CARIBE (Braz.). Cassava beer, on the Rio Negro.
CaRIZA. <A musical pipe.
CARTELHANA. Yangua tinctoria (Spruce). Gives a dye like that of indigo.
CASCARIA. Samydaceze.
CASTANHA (Port.). Sertholletia excelsa. SBrazil-nut tree.
CAuURE. Perhaps Ay//znga odorata, from the roots of which a scented water
» is distilled by the Indians. :
Caxir{ (L.G.). Mandiocca beer.
CEDAR. Icica sp. (Amyridacez). On the Amazon.
rs Phyllanthus sp. (Euphorbiaceze). Quito.
CHICHA (Ven.). Cassava beer.
Coca. Lrythoxylon coca.
Cocul. Agave:sp. Root diuretic.
CoctRra. Pourouma sp. (Artocarpez). Edible fruit.
CoroziTo. Tree at Maypures.
Corusi-cad. Calocophyllum coccineum (Rubiacez). Sun-leaf. Very hand-
some flower-bracts.
COW-TREE. Mimusops sp. (Sapotaceze). Produces wholesome milk.
56 Callophora sp. (Apocynaceze). Produces wholesome milk.
59 Loureira sp. (Euphorbiacez). Yields milk.
CularE. Llais melanococca (Palm). Oil-producing.
CumaAt, CuMaA-acu. Callophora (Apocynaceze). Cow-trees.
CUMANDA-ACU. ‘Campstandra laurifolia (Leg.). Beans grated used as an
emetic.
CuMARU. Dz¢pteryx odorata (Leguminose). Tonga bean, scent.
CUMARU-RANA. Andira oblonga (Leg.).
CuMATI. Myrcia sp. (hb. 1916) (Myrtacez). Bark gives a varnish used on
cuyas.
CuNAMBI. Jcthyothera cunambi (Composite). Roots used to stupefy fish.
Cuntco (Ven.). Mandiocca field in Venezuela.
Cunuri. Euphorbiacez. Seeds give an edible oil.
Cupanad (Ven.). Paullinia cupana (Sapindaceee), An intoxicant.
CupA-UBA. Copatfera Marti (Leg.). Yields balsam capivi.
CupIM. Termites, white ants.
Cupu-assu. Theobroma sp. Pulp of fruit eatable.
CuravdA. Bromelia Karatas (Bromeliacez). Leaf fibres used in making
hammocks.
CurvuA. Afétalea spectabrlis (Palmacez).
CUSPARIA=CHUSPA. Galipea sp. Bark tonic and febrifuge.
meGsoaky Or NATIVE NAMES © 521
Cuyas. Calabash basins.
CUYEIRA. Crescentia sp. Calabash tree.
EHEN (Ven.). A minute biting fly.
Espira (Braz.). <A cable.
GAMALOTES. Panicumsp. Grasses in the Cinchona forests.
Gapo (L.G.). The flooded banks of rivers.
GENIPAPA. Genipa Americana (Cinchonacee). Fruit gives a black dye.
Guaco. Mikania sp. Supposed antidote to snake-bites.
GuajARA. Lucuma sp. (Sapotacee). Cooked fruits eatable.
GUANABANO. Anona muricata. Said to be a powerful remedy in bilious
fevers, dysentery, etc.
GUARANA, Paullinia cupana, stimulant from seeds of.
Hospo=Jovo. Same as Tapiriba (¢.z.).
IGARAPE (L.G.). A small stream.
IMBAUBA. Cecropia sp. Small white-leaved trees.
InaJA. Maximiliana regia. A lofty palm.
INGA (L.G.). Inga sp. (Mimosez). Small trees, produce varnish,
IpaDv (L.G.). Exythroxylon coca (Erythroxylacez). Leaves stimulant.
IRAPAI. Carludovica sp. (Pandanacez). Peru.
Ira-UBA. Acrodiclidium sp. (Lauraceze). Stone tree, hard wood, finely
scented.
IruA, IrvuAN. Gnetum sp. Fibre makes strong fishing-lines.
Iv. Astrocaryum acaule (Palmacez).
JAcITARA (L.G.). Desmoncus macroacanthus. A climbing palm.
JAPURA, YAPURA. £risma japura (Vochysiacez).
JarA. Leopoldinia sp. Small graceful palms.
JARARACA-TUYA. Dracontium sp. (Aracez). Stems snake-like.
JauacAna. Efetra falcata (Cxsalpinie). Infusion of bark good for ague.
JAUARI (L.G.). Astrocaryum jauari. A tall prickly palm.
JucaRA. Narrow strips or planks of shell of palms.
JueaTi. Rhaphiatedigera. Ashort-stemmed but noble palm with immense
leaves.
JURUPARI (L.G.). Devil or demon of the Indians.
JUTAHI. -Hymene sp. (Fabaceze), Algaroba (Venez.), edible.
LAUREL AMARILLO. Ocotea cymbarum (\auracec).
LECHEROTE. Asclepiadea? A twiner, with sweet, milky, wholesome juice,
useful in coughs.
MACERANDUBA. Mimusops sp. (Sapindacez). The Para cow-tree.
MarajA. Bactris maraja. Small palm; fruit edible.
MARAYA. Astrocaryum aculeatum (Palmacez).
MARIMA. Trees. producing eatable grubs.
Masuto. Fermented yucas.
MATINHO. Second growth forest.
MATO VIRGEM (Port.). Virgin forest.
Mayaca, Manica. Mayacacez. Small bog plants.
Maynas. A province of N.E. Peru.
522 NOTES OFA BOTANTS®
“
mh
MIRA PIXUNA. Swartzia srandifiora (Ceesalpiniz). Black wood. a
MIRITI. Palms of the genus Mauritia. é,
MONKEY-Pops. Pithecolobium (Mimosez). e
MosQuliTo (Span.). Sand-flies, etc. .
MucuINn. A small red tick. Ma
MucujA. Acrocomia lasiospatha. Palm with eatable fruit.
MULATTO TREE. Luxkylista Spruceana (Cinchonacez).
MULONGO. Hancornia laxa (Apocynacez). Cork wood. :
MuMBACA. Astrocaryum mumbaca. Palm; fruit eatable. -
MurikiticaA. <Aclimber. Stem gives drinkable water. ;
Murix!l. Syrsonitma Poppigtana (Malpighiacez). Bark for tanning.
MvuRuMURU. Astrocaryum murumuru. Palm; very spiny. Cattle eat
the fruit.
Muroure. Floating plants.
Muttca. Small biting flies.
NaAaMAO, Carzca Papaya (Papayacez), The Papaw ; fruit eatable,
Niopo (Ven.). /2ptadenza Niopo,
OANANI. Moronobcea sp, (Clusiaceze), Black pitch.
OcumMo. Arumsp. Powder used in asthma; root contains half its bulk of
fine starch,
PAACUA-RANA. Urania sp. An edible root.
Pac6va. Musa sapientie (Musacez). Plantain fruit.
PACOVA-SOROROCA. <A/pinia Paco-seroca (Jacq.). Gives a purple dye, not
permanent.
PAJA MANIBA. Casséa occidentalis. Root bitter ; good in fevers.
PajJUARU. Mandiocca beer, also called ‘‘ caxiri.”
Pao Dd’ ARco. Tecoma sp. Bows and cigar-holders made of this wood.
PAO DE LACRE. Vesmita gutanensts (Hypericacee). Yields sealing-wax.
PAO MULATTO. EFukylista Spruceana (Cinchonacee).
PAPAW. Carica Papaya (Papayacez). A fruit.
PARANA-MIRI. Side channels of the Amazon, small rivers.
PARATUR{. Lauraceze. Hard wood, on Upper Orinoco.
PARICA (L.G.). Péptadenta Niopo (Mimosez). Seeds make snuff.
PatawA. Cxnocarpus Batawa (Palm). Spines of Jeaf-stems used to make
arrows for blowing-canes.
PAXIUBA. Jriartea exorhiza (Palmacez).
PAXIUBA-I. Jrtartea setigera (Palm). Stem used for blowing-canes.
PIASsABA. Leopoldinia piassaba (Palmacee).
PIHIGUA. LEatable grub.
PINDOBA. AZtalea compta (Palmacex).
PiqutA. Caryocar sp. (Rhizobolaceze). Fruit with kernels like almonds,
PIRANHA-SIPO, A climber yielding drinkable water.
PIRARUCU. Sudis gigas. A large fish. When salted, a chief food on the
Amazon,
PIRI-MEMBECKA. Paspalum pyramidale (Graminacez).
PITOMBA. Sapindus cerasinus (Sapindaceze). Edible fruit.
Prium (L.G.). Small biting flies.
PUPUNHA. Guzlielma speciosa (Palmaceze). Peach palm.
PuRU-PURU (L.G.). A leprous skin disease,
Pusku-porotTo. <A shrub with edible fruit (Papilionaceze) cultivated in
Tarapoto district.
GLOSSARY OF NATIVE NAMES. 523
Raiz DE Mato. Aristolochia sp. A powerful tonic.
ReTAMA, Thevetia neritfolia (Apocynace)., Fruit eatable ; seeds used for
rattles.
SAMAUMA. Eriodendron sp. (Sterculiaceze). The Silk-cotton tree.
Sapucalia. Lecythis sp. Good ship timber.
TABATINGA. White earth, used in painting cuyas.
TABOcAL. A bamboo thicket.
TacuarRi. Javea fistulosa (Euphorbiacez). Stems make pipe-tubes.
TAMACOAR[. Caraipa sp.? Produces a fine balsam ; specific for itch.
TAMSHE. A liana used in the Andes.
TAPIIRA GUAYABA, Bellucia sp. (Melastomacez). A fruit.
TAPIRIBA. Mauria juglandifolia (Anacardiacee). A fruit, bark medicinal.
TApuyAas. Indians semi-civilised.
TauaRi. Bark cloth. Tecoma sp. (Bignoniacez).
TERRA FIRME. Dry land, above floods,
Timso. Paullinia pinnata (Sapindaces). Roots used to stupefy fish.
TIMBO-TITICA. Heteropsis sp. Shields of Uaupés Indians made of this wood.
TRAGO (Barré), Native spirit, in the Rio Negro,
TUGHAUA (L.G.). The chief of an Indian tribe.
TucuM. Astrocaryum vulgare (Palmacezx),
Tucums. Astrocaryum tucuma (Palmaceze),
TUCUNDERA (L.G.). The large severely stinging ant.
Tupi. Indians who speak Lingoa Geral.
TuruRI. Thick bark cloth.
Uact.. Leguminose, Produces a bitter oil from seeds.
UARAMA. Marantacez. An edible root.
Uarca. Marantaceze. An edible root.
Uartma. Maranta sp. Leaves used in making mats, baskets, etc.
Uauassu. Attalea spectosa. Palmacez.
Usa, UBapDA. Large dug-out canoes.
UsimM, Geonoma sp. Small forest palms.
Usussu. Manicaria sacctfera (Palmacee),
Ucu-UBa. Myristica fatua (Myristicaceze), Fruit very oily.
UrIRA (L.G.). Gynerium saccharotdes (Granimez), Wild cane, much used
in native houses in the Andes, and for arrows, etc.
UIRARI-RANA. Strychnos Brasiliensds (Loganiacez). A fruit, edible.
Umari. Poraqueiba sp. Kernel eaten after steeping in water.
UmiriI. Humirium sp. _ Edible fruit.
UNI-BINI. Bignonia? Roots cure for ophthalmia.
Urusu. The Turkey-buzzard: a black vulture.
Urusu MARAcajA. Passtflora fetida, fruit of.
Uruct. Bixa orellana (Flacourtiaceze). Anatto, a dye.
Urucuri. Aftalea excelsa (Palmacez), The fruit is burnt to smoke india-
rubber,
Urupr. An edible agaric at Para.
Viyyau. Maranta Vijau, Leaves used for making lids of baskets water-
proof (on Pastasa river).
XERINGUE. Siphonia sp. (Euphorbiaceze). India-rubber trees.
XIRIUBA, A tree at Tarapoto (Uchpa chillca), the ashes of which make the
best lye for soap.
524 NOTES OF A> BOTANIS(
YAcITARA. Desmoncus, Climbing palms.
YANGUA. Yangua tinctoria (Bignoniacez). \ Leaves produce a blue dye ;
_ bark a remedy for syphilis,
YENIPAPA, GCentpa macrophylla (Cinchonacee). <A fruit.
YUMURA CEEMI, Clusiaceze. Sweet tree.
YUTAHI. Hymenza sp., Peltogyne sp. (Fabacez). Seeds edible.
ZAMBO. <A negro and Indian half-breed.
ZANAHOVIA. An edible root, like parsnips; near our carrot (Daucus
carota),
ZANCUDOS. Mosquitoes.
Nore.—The following terms also occur in Spruce’s Journals or Notes, but
I have been able to find no explanation of them :—
CAMAZAS (in. Venezuela),
ISHPINGO.
JEBARIE,
RONDIN (see vol. ii. p. 114).
WINGO.
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PND ey Xx
ABITAGUA
ABITAGUA mountain, ii. 146 ; mosses
on, li. 147; second visit to, 11. 168
Abolboda pulchella, i. 469
ABUTA, ii. 280
Acacia Farnesiana, ii. 338
Acacia paniculata, i. 83
ACACIAS, ll. 236
ACALYPHA, ll. 280
ACANTHACE, ll. 246, 290
ACHIMENES, li. 290
ACHYROPHORI, il. 288
ACHYROPHORUS, li. 264
Acrodiclidium Itauba, 1. 160
ACROSTICHUM, i. 47
ACROSTICHUMS, 1. 304
ADELANTHUS, il. 100
Adenaria purpurata, i. 285
ADIANTUM, li. 291
ZECHMEA, il. 240
ALGIPHILA, 1. 467
AERIAL roots, 1. 24
AGOYAN, bridge of, il. 163
AGUACATAL, port of, ii. 306
Auausi, the Cinchona forests of, ii.
229; village, ii. 2345 windy, il.
235
ALCHEMILLA, ll. 181
ALDINA, 1. 422
Aldina latifolia, 1. 291
ALGARROBO in desert, il. 335, 336
ALLAMANDA, 1. 468
PMIGATOR.| Visit. Of, 1.
snake, ii. 118
ALLIGATOR pear, attractive to cats,
Elica, 117~3'76
AUEVEATORS, 1. 170, 177; 239
ALLPA-YACU river, li, 145
ALNUS, il. 182
ALPINE vegetation, fine, ii. 264
ALPINIA, i. 47
SO; ang
ANDROPOGON
AMSOPHIEAS te. 47= 11 201
ALSTREMERIA, ll. 250
AMAIONA, ll. 396
Amatona saccifera, il. 396
Amanztta muscaria, ii. 429
AMARANTACEA, desert, ll. 334
AMARANTACEA, ii. 283
Amasona gentpordes, 1. 469
AMAZON, in the, i. 59; and Rio
Negro, contrasts of, i. 5043; cause
of banks falling, i. 505; grass-
islands of, i. 506
AMAZON stones, ll. 464
AMAZONIA, regrets England not hay-
UO 1L5 lle? Li
AMAZONIAN villages, how formed, 1.
4763; vegetation, ll. 343
AMBATO, description of, 11. 186 ; winds
and sand-drifts of, 11. 189 ; healthi-
ness of, ii. 190; pleasant society
at, 1; 200); to “Alausi, i: 22075) to
the forests, 11. 263
Ambrosia peruviana, ii. 340
AMOTAPE, aspect of, ii. 335
AMYRIDEA, 1. 304
ANACALYPTA, 1. 382
ANACARDIUM, i. 229
Anacardium giganteum, i. 400
Anacardium occidentale, i. 66
Anacardium Spriceanum, 1, 237
ANAPELTIS, ll. 291
ANCYROSTEMON, il. 286
ANDES, first view of, ii. II; seen
from Puca-yacu, ii. 127; sharp
division of climates, ii. 264
Andira oblonga, 1. 161
ANDOAS village, ii. 111-13; governor
Of 4
ANDRIAPETALA, 1. 291
ANDROPOGON, 1. 441
528)
526
ANEIMIA
ANEIMIA, li. 50
ANEURA, 1. 383
ANGURIA, ll. 280
ANIMAL sounds on Amazon, i. 168 ;
migrations, li. 363
ANNUALS on rocks of Atabapo, i. 452
Anomospermum Schomburgkit, i. 338
ANONA, ll. 282
ANTHOCEROS, il. 100
ANTHURIUM, lil. 277
ANTOMBOS, hacienda at, ii. 162
ANT-AGENCY in plant-structure, 1.
388
ANTS, at Marana, i. 453; and wasps,
ii. 69-70; migrating, ll. 370
ANTS’ nests, i. 33; plants growing
Onsei.32
ANT-STINGS, effect of, i. 362
A petba Tibombon, 1. 468
APOCYNEA, ll. 335
APTANDRA, 1. 335
AQUATIC plants, 1. 55
ARALIACEA, ll. 265
ARENAL of the Pastasa, vegetation
of, 11. 159
ARIPECURU river, i. 87, 103; first
cataract, 1. 90, 99
ARISTIDA, ll. 340
ARISTOLOCHIA, i. 29
ARISTOLOCHIA, il. 287
AROIDS, i. 32
Arrabidea carichenensts, 1, 467
Arrabidea Chica, var. thyrsotdea,
i. 468
Arrabidea tnequalts, i. 422
ARTANTHE, i. 6, il. 283
‘¢ As BARREIRAS,” 1. 176
Asclepias curassavica, il. 301
ASPIDIUM, ll. 291
ASPIDOSPERMA, i. 433, 468
ASPLENIA, ll. 205
ASPLENIUM, li. 291
ASTRAGALUS, li. 264
ASTROCARYUM, il. 301
Astrocaryum fJauari (fig.), 1. 151
Astrocaryum Mumbaca (fig.), 1. 155
ASTROPHEA, li. 301
ATLANTIC and Pacific watershed, 11.
235
ATROPA, ll. 233
ATTALEA, 1.25, a5, 275
Attalea compta, i. 66
Attalea speciosa, i. 176, 182
Averrhoa Bilimbi, ii. 316
INDEX
BIGNONIA
AZEDARACH, i. 70
AZOLDA, 1. 111-506
Azolla Magellanica, li. 291
AZORELLA, il. 23%
BACABA, i. 223
BACCHARIDES, li. 288
BACTRIS, i. 96, 452; tapes
BADULA, 1. 433
BALANOPHOREA, ll. 207
BALSAM CAPIVI tree, i. 161
BAMBOO at Maypures, i. 457
BANCROFT on medicine-men, ii. 433
Bantsteria Caapt, i. 414, 421
BANos, arrival at, ii. 163; situation
of, il. 167 ; description of, i, 178,
183; earthquakes at, ii. 184
BARBACENIA, i. 468; at Maypures,
1. 457
BARIA river, i. 424
BARK, varieties of, i. 27 ; white crust
on, 1.27.5 flaky, "iene 7
BARK trees, sorts of, ii. 248
BARNADESIA, ll. 249
BARRA, climate of, i. 219; changes
In, 1. 502
BARRA DO RIO NEGRO, i. 200
BarrE Indians, i. 312, 316
Bartramia viridisstma, ii. 292
BATATAS, 1.-6
Batesia erythrosperma, ii. 432
BaTs at Caripi, 1. 9; blood-sucking,
i. 300; enormous swarm of, i. 389
BAUHINIA, i. 38
BAuNA, an edible root, i. 215
BAZARRE, F. Cyprian, 1. 463
BEACH of coloured pebbles, ii. 118
BEAR, the Andine, i. 274
BEEF-DRYING at Maypures, i. 462
BEGONIACEA, ll. 280
BELLUCIA, 4, 29
BELLUCI# Sp., 1. 16g
BELT on ants and plants, li. 410
BENTHAM, Mr. G., letters to, i. 207,
208, 227, 290, 298, 328, 334, 348,
380, 502, ll. 30,48, 72-55. Lane
175, 200, 207, 241, 222, 22a sua,
341
BERBERIS, li. 249, 265
BERTHOLLETIA, i. 494-5; noble, 1.
18; fruit of, i. 44
Bertholletia excelsa, i. 16, 356
BIGNONIA, 1. 28, 422, 467, ii. 290;
fine species of, 1. 79 ; rope of, ii. 304
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BIRD
BIRD, musical, i. 101-2
BikDs, migrations of, il, 3733 peri-
odical visits of, i. 379
Bixa orellana, ‘‘ Anatto” (fig.), i.
414-19
BLAKEA, ll. 285
BLECHNUM, li. 290
BOAT - BUILDING, difficulties of, 1.
coms
BOMAREA, li. 278
BOMBAX, 1. 37
BOMBONASA, voyage of, ii. 115-323
windings of, 11. 116; picturesque
banks of, ii. 117 ; sudden flood in,
i. T20
BONARA, li. 280
Borreria tenella, i. 469
BOTANICAL excursions at Tarapoto,
ll. 83
Bowdichia pubescens, i. 158, il. 315
Brachymenium Jameson, ii. 210
Brachynema ramifiorum, i. 96
BRANCHES, inflated, il. 399
BRANDAO, Senhor, i. 246
BRAZILIANS, characters of, 1. 124
BRAZIL-NUT trees, 1. 16
BREVES, 1. 55
BRIDGE-BUILDING over the Topo, il,
154-7
BRIDGE of Bafios described, il. 218 ;
hanging, of Penipe described, 1.
219
BROMELS, 1. 32 :
BRYOPTERIS, li. 147
BRYUM, li. 340
Bryum argenteum, ii. 100
Bryum coronatum, ii. 100
BUDDLEIA, li. 265
Buddleta americana, ii. 339
BUENA VISTA, on Casiquiari, i.
391
BUNCHOSIA, ll. 421
Bunchosia Armentaca, li. 282
BURDACHIA, i. 83
BURIAL customs of Uaupés, i. 330
Burmannia bicolor, 1. 453
BURMANNIAS, i. 441
Busst palm, i. 56
BUTTERFLIES abundant, il. 274
BUTTNERIA, li. 246
Liittneria pentagona, i. 469
BUTTRESSES of trees, 1. 20
BYRSONIMA, i. 214, 441, il. 421
Byrsonima coccolobefolia, i. 67
INDEX
CAPTAIN 52/7)
Byrsonima nitidtssonia, 1. 469
Lyrsonima Pippigziana, i. 67
CAAPI, li. 414-25
CAATINGA, definition of, i.
trees of, 1. 304
CABEZA DE VEGA, li. 462
CABLE cut by Indians, i. 387
CABUQUENA, 1. 261
CACAO cultivation, i. 79, 80
Cacoucta coccinea, 1. 5
CACTI 2232
200 ;
“CACTUS, Il; 236, 335,339
CAISALPINIA, ii. 236, 315, 338
CASALPINIA, il. 284
Cesalpinia pulcherrima, i. 70
Caju, i. 66
CALATHEA, i. 97
CALCEOLARIA, il. 231
CALCEOLARIA, li. 264
CAT CEOLARTAS. sil, Tod
CALICO used for drying paper, il. 177
CALLIANDRA, ll. 284, 338
CALLISTRO, portrait of, i. 325
CALEITRICHE, oi. 183, 280
CALOPHYSA, li. 394
Calophysa tococotda, i. 395
Calycophyllum coccineum, i. 79
CALYMPERES, 1. 382
CAMPANA mountain, ii, 51-66
CAMPDERIA, ll. 402
CAMPO, vegetation of a, i. 212
CAMPOS at Santarem, i. 65
Campsiandra angustifolia, i. 337
Canipstandra laurtfolia, i. 149, 337;
398
CAMPY LONEURON, 1547, Il. 201
CANELOS, arrival at, il. 130; packing
loads at, il. 131 ; to Baiios, ii. 135 ;
vegetation of Montaiia of, ii. 169
CANELOS, forest of, described, ii.
164; Madame Godin lost in, ii.
165; vegetation of, il. 166-7
CANO DE CALIPo, i. 400; de Doro-
tomuni, 1. 398
CANOE, description of, i. 269
CANTON DEL Rio NEGRO, decad-
ence of, i. 470
CANTUA, ii. 339
CAPPARIS, ii, 45, 338
Capparis crotonotdes, ii. 335
Capraria peruviana, il. 315
CAPSICUM, i. 339
CAPTAIN HISLOP, i. 62, 63
528
CARACOL
CARACOL on Ventanas river, ii. 308
Caraipa paniculata, i. 381
CARANA palm, i. 452; scent of, 1. 46
CARBAJAL, F. Gaspar, ii. 457
CARDAMINE, ll. I81
CARDIOSPERMUM, i. 38, il. 281
CARICA, ii. 280
Carica Papaya, \. 339
CARIPI, visit to, 1. 73 volcanic rock
at, 1.10, 143 s "bats ate. O- potteny—
making at, 1. 10; mandiocca at,
1.11 3 pottery, trecyatyni.g 2); tnee-
climbing at, i. 13
CARLUDOVICA, 1. 497, ll. 5, 278
CARNAU, Serra de, i. 90
CARYOCAR, 1. 37, 497
Cascarilla serrana, i. 247
CASEARIA, i. 70, il. 280
CASIQUIARI, meaning of name,’ 1.
3573 voyage up, i. 385; picture-
writing in, il. 474
CASSIA; 1.9415 3;)400, 12645. 339
Cassia prostrata, i. 467
CASSIAS, 1. 5, 11. 308
CASSICUS, nests of, 11. 44
Cassytha brasiliensis, i. 69
CASTILLE]A, Iine23't
CATARACTS.of the Uaupés, i. 321;
of Orinoco, fine view of, i. 458
CATERPILLARS, stinging, il. . 71-3;
food plants of, 11. 363-6
CECROPIA, a: 207, teased
CECROPIA, ll. 279
Cecropia peltata, il. 447
CECROPUAS E37. 3 Onan ls
CrepDArRS of Amazon and Andes, 1. 104
CENTROPOGON, ll. 287
Centropogon Surinamensts, ii. 287
CENTROSEMA, i. 6
Centrosema angustifolium, 1. 469
CENTUNCULUS, il. 181
CEPH ALIS, 1. 90, 4337) 115 287
CERASTIUM, ll. 181, 231
CERASUS, ll. 249
Cereus peruvianus, ii. 318
Ceroxylon andicola, i. 268
CERRO DE. DIBIALI, J: 428, 432 ¢ ede
Abispa, 1. 428; 5432; limeiye i
A293. A325 ade. Wanta, 1 425emae
Tarurumari, i, 432 ; de Aracamuni,
Le 4 s2
CESTRUM, il. 289
Cestrum heliondinum, i. 339
CHANCHAN river, li. 236
INDEX
COLLOPHORA
CHANDUY, residence at, ii. 317
CHAPAJA, li. 25
CHARLES NELSON, ll. 52
CHARLIE, a Sailor, story of, 11. 31-33
CHASUTA, il. 22; rapids near, ii. 24 ;
women fighting at, ii. 458
Chenopodium ambrostoides, i. 283,
340
Chenopodium multifidum, i. 340
CHILDREN, half-breed, i. 243
CHIMBORAZO, view of, ii. 193; as
seen from Riobamba, ii. 201 ; from
paramo of Sanancajas, ll, 263
CHIRA, valley of, 11. 330-32
Chlorts foltosa, 1. 147
Chomelta ribestoides, i. 68
CHORISIA, li. 281
Chorista ventricosa, ll. 45
CHUNCHI, dreadful road to, ii. 234
CHUQUIPOGYO, tambo of, 11. 263
CHUQUIRAGUAS, li. 288
CHUSQUEA, il. 267, 268
CINCHONA, lil. 407
CINCHONA forests, 11. 258-304
CINCHONA plants, despatch of, ii.
309 ; arrival of, in India, il. 310;
cultivation of, 11. 310-11
CINCHONA trees, ii. 242
Cinchona magnifolia, ii. 287, 300
Cinchona succtrubra, il. 261, 287,
407; a very beautiful tree, 11. 273
CINNAMON, search for the, il. 349-51
Cipura paludosa, i. 468
Cissampelos assimtlts, i. 69
Cissus, 1.339
CITHAREXYLON, ll, 289
CITROSMA, ii. 240, 280
CLAYDONIA, 1. 218
Cletstes rosea, 1. 468
CLEMATIS, il. 246
CLEOME, li. 281, 340
CLOCK-TOWER at Tabalosos, il. 97
CLUSIA, i. 31, 1. 282) eptphytalga. a5
ChuUiStAS win ar
COCCOLOBA, ll. 402, 405
Coccoloba parimensts, il. 403
COCHIQUINA, li. 5
COCKROACHES, li. 275
Cocuf, ascent of mount, i. 358, 362
COINCIDENCE, a singular, 1. 121
Colicodendrum scabridum, ii. 335
Collea Jussicana, i. 69
COLLECTIONS at San Carlos, i. 380
COLLOPHORA, 1. 224
COMBRETACEA
COMBRETACEA, edible fruit, ii. 316
COMBRETUM, i, 98
COMMELYNA, ll. 279
Commeanthus Schomburgkti?, 1. 440
CoMPOSITA, ornamental, ll. 240
COMPOSITA&, 11. 288 ; many arbores-
cent, tl. 212
CONDAMINE, li. 469
Condaminea corymbosa, ii. 59
CONDOR, adventure with, 1. 214
CONNARUS, i. 422
Connarus crasstfolius, i. 146
COPAIFERA, li. 4
Copatfera Marti, i. 161
COPAL, i. 53
CorDIA, i. 469, ll. 289, 399
Cordia formicarum, ii. 400
Cordtia gerascantha, i. 400
Cordia graveolens, i. 360
Cordia tnterrupta, i. 469
CORK tree, i. 67
CORNIDIA, ii. 76, 285
Cossus, il. 278
Costus, i. 47
COMALO, ti: 182
COTTON-SPINNING in Tarapoto, 11. 82
Couepia rivalis, 1. 149
Couma oblonga, i. 468
CoOUROUPITA, a remarkable, ii. 4
Coutoubea spicata, 1. 71, li. 315
Cow-TREES of South America, 1. 51
CRATAGUS, ii. 182
Crateva taptoides, il. 315
CREMOLOBUS, li. 182
CRESCENTIA, 1. 400
Crescentia cujete, i. 44
CRETACEOUS rocks, i. I41
Cross, Mr., arrival of, ii. 293
CROTALARIA, ii. 340
CROTALARIA, il. 245
CROTONS, perforated, 11. 400
CRYPHA, li. 100
CRYPTOCARPUS, ii. 338
CRYPTOGAMS, few on Rio Negro, 1.
267
CucAMa Indians, ii. 9
CUNIPUSANA Indians, i. 427
CUNUCUNUMA river, ascent of, i.
408 ; falls of, i. 410 ; aquatic plants
of, i. 418
CuPANA, ii. 448-54
CUPANIA, 1. 433
CUPHEA, 1.457, 11.
340
VOw. ll
170, 246, “285,
INDEX
DIOCLEA 529
Cuphea Melville, i. 467
CURATEERILA, 1.214
Curatella americana, i. 67, il. 39
Custobvio, the story of, i. 443-7
CUSTODIO’S village, 1. 425, 433
CuyaBsA, use of guarana at, ii. 452
CYATHEA, ll. 169, 291
CYBIANTHUS, i. 83
CY. CUANEHS alae 2
Cyclopeltis semicordata, ii. 291
CYNOCTONA, li. 289
Cynodon dactylon, 11. 340
Cynometra Spruceana, 1. 104
CYPERT 1. -4
CYPERUS, il. 340
CYPHOMANDRA, i. 83
CyTISUSst 1S 1
Dactyloctenium Avgyptiacum, iW. 277
DAACUGNAG Gy i473
Damp at San Carlos, i, 381
DANCING in the tropics, 1. 250
DANGEROUS outlet to Amazon, 1,
IQI
DATURA, Il. 340
DAULE, village of, ii. 303
DAVALLIA, 11. 50, 201
Davallia Lindenz, i. 205
Davila Radula, i. 69
DAVY A, 1. 4:33
Decheuxia chioccoides, 1. 469
Declieuxta herbacea, \. 467
Delostoma integrifolium, i. 246
DEMONS, ll. 437
DENDROCEROS, ll. 100
DERROTERO (Guide) of Valverde, 1.
500
DESERT, limits of Peruvian, ii. 338 ;
vegetation, il. 333
DESERTED river, il. 109
DESMODIUM, ll. 245, 340
Desmodium adscendens, i. 467
DESMONCUS, 1. 30, 452
DICHROMENA, 1. 146
Dichromena pubera, \. 467
DICKSONIA, 11. 291
Dicorynea Spruceana, i. 291, 495
Dictyocalyx Miersit, ii. 340
DICTYOPTERIS, il. 291
DIDYMOCHLANA, li. 291
Didymodon gracilis, ii. 210
DILLENIACE&, sap drinkable, 1. 31
DIMORPHANDRA, i. 380
DIOCLEA, li. 398
2 Ni
530 DIOSCOREA
DIOSCOREA, i. 360, 467, 11. 279
DIPLAZIUM, li. 50
Diplotropts nitida, 1. 291, 495
Dipreris, ii. 291
Dipteryx odorata (fig.), 1. 482
DISTICOPHYLLUM, Ill. 100
Ditassa glaucescens, 1. 468
DOLIOCARPUS, 1. 31
DRABA, li. 264
DRACONTIUM, i. 86
DREPANOCARPUS, i. 29, 495
Drepanocarpus ferox, i. 98
DRINK, deaths by, i. 378
DROSERA, i. 213
DRYMARIA, li. 283
DUIDA mountain, 1. 401-7
DURANTA, ii. 289
EARTHQUAKE in the Andes, i. 226
ECHITES, i. 6, 360, 467, 468, ii. 240,
288
Etchites anceps, \. 433
ECLIPSE of moon, i. 278
EDIBLE fruits, 1. 2235 root, anew,
ee
Epiror on Hidden Treasure, il. 513
EDUCATION question, on the, i. 240
EICHHORNIA, i. 56, li. 301
ELAPHOGLOSSUM, il. 290, 291
ELAPHRIUM, 1. 468
ELEOCHARIS, 1. 147
EMBOTHRIUM, ll. 76
ENDOGENS, 1. 46
ENGLISHMEN at Santarem, i. 62,
64
ENTODON, il. 100 -
EOcENE rocks, 1. 142
EPIDENDRUM, 1. 361, ii. 250
EPILOBIUM, li. 245
EPIPHYTAL ferns, 1. 33
EPIPHYTES and parasites, 1. 32
EQUISETUM, ii. 2903; gigantic, li.
205
ERAGROSTIS, li. 340
ERICEA, ii. 282
ERIOCAULON, i. 147
ERIODENDRA, i. 18
ERIODENDRON, 1. 37
Eriope nudifiora, i. 468
Erisma japura, 1. 399
ERYTHRINA, ii. 182, 244, 284
Erythrina amastsa, il. 44
ERYTHROXYLON, 1. 70
Erythroxylon cataractarum, i. 446
INDEX
FUCHSIA
Lrythroxylon Coca, 1. 70, 217
ESMERALDA, 1. 402-7 ; collecting at,
1. 436-43
EUGENIA, ii. 286
EUKYLISTA, ans
Lukylista Spruceana, ii. 4, 28
EUPATORIA, il. 264, 288
EUPHORBIA, li. 340
EUTERPE, i. 220, il. 170, 278
Evolvulus lintfolium, i. 467
EXCURSIONS from Manaos, i. 233
EXSERTED roots, i. 22
FABRONIA, li. I00
FARAMEA, i. 433, li. 287
Faramea odoratissima, 1. 467
FARINHA, two sorts of, 1. II
FERNS, at Tarapoto, ii. 50, 92, 99;
in Cinchona forests, ii. 290-1
FERN-VALLEYS, i. 47
FESTUCA, ll. 263
FICS, ai: 27.6
FIREWOOD on steamers, ii. 28
FIsH benumbed, 1. 188
FISHES, distribution of, ii. 379
FISSIDENS, 1. 362
FLAGELLATION, voluntary, li. 105
FLOATING islands, 1. 108
FLOOD, a dangerous, li. 121
FLOWERS of the forests, i. 40, 43;
periods of opening, ii. 45
Forses, Mr. H. O., on Myrmecodia
and Hydnophytum, ii. 409
ForeEsT, the Amazonian, i. 256, 258 ;
lost in, 1. 92, 96
FOREST at Pozuelos, fine, li. 301
Forest of Canelos, first night in, ii.
136 ; journey through, described,
ii. 175; goods left anpeea at 7b>
Cryptogamia of, 11. 205
FORESTS near Para, i. 2; at Tauat,
i. 17; rich on slopes of Andes, i.
225
FOREST-TRACKS, how made, i. 305
ForEsT trees, height of, i. 19
FREZIERA, il. 282
FRIAR’S PLUMS, li. 422
FROG, a beautiful, 1. 102
FROGS as food, 1. 484
FRUITS, curious, i. 44; like flowers,
i. 453 like wasps’ nests, i. 442;
abundance at Guayaquil, il. 315
FRULLANIA, ll. 292
FUCHSIA, ii. 285
oe ee” | ee Le ned
if i i MA es
PERE LEA
st) Bee ea eee
FUCHSI
FUCHSIA, ii. 264
FUCHSIAS, il. 181, 249
GALIPEA, 1. 304
Galipea opposzitifolia, i. 433
GAME, abundance of, i. 193
Gapo, trees of flowering, 1. 228
GARDENIA, il. 287
GARDOQUIA sp., il. 181
GAULTHERIA, ll. 267
GENIPA, i. 150
Gentpa americana, i. 164
Gentpa macrophylla, 1. 164, 263
GENTIANA, ll, 231, 250; white, ii.
ZI E%l
Gentiana cernua, il. 213, 264
GEOLOGY of Lower Amazon, i. 134
GEONOMA, 1. II, 99
GEONOMA, ll. 278
GERANIUM, li. 181, 264
GESNERACEA, ii. 289
GLEICHENIA, ll. 291
Gleichenta glaucescens, 1. 82
GLIRICIDIA, ii. 455
GNAPHALIUM, ll. 231, 250
Gnetum trinerve, li. 279
GONIOPHLEBIUM, ii. 291
GONIOPTERIS, il. 291
GONZALEA, li. 287
GOVERNMENT of Canton del Rio
INEGero; 1 471
GRAMMITIS, il. 50
GRAPHIDEA, ii. 293
GRASS, floating islands of, i. 108-12
GRASS-ISLANDS of Amazon, i. 506
GREEN stones, ll. 464
GRIAS, ii. 286
Grimmia fontinalordes, i. 442
Grimmia longirostris, 1. 210
GUAHARIBO Indian, 1. 396-7
GUAHARIBOS, i. 477
(GUAHIBO woman, portrait of, i. 455
GUAHIBOs Indians, i. 454, 477
(GUAIACUM, ll. 283
GUAINIA, new plants on, ii. 211
GUAMOTE, ii. 232
GUANARI, rock of, i. 390
GUANDISAGUA cataract, ii. 199-203
GUANUJO, village, ii. 266
GUARANA, i. 1803 uses of, i. 181,
li, 448-54; a country of, i. 297
GUARANDA, town of, ii. 265
GUATAX!, farm, ii. 237; flora of, ii.
245
INDEX
HERNDON
531
GUATTERIA, li. 282
GUAYAQUIL, in 1860, ii. 301; fire at,
il. 302; fruits abundant at, ii. 315
GUAYRA-PATA mountain, ii, 182
GUAYUSA, ii. 453
GUIDE to Llanganati, ii. 492
Guilielma spectosa, i. 223, 339, ii.
447
Gums, etc., difficulty of getting
botanical specimens of, 11. 322
GURUPA, i. 59
Gustavia brasiliensis, i. 86
Gustavia fastuosa, 1. 39
GUSTAVIAS, 1. 291
GUZMAN, Don Atanasio, il. 493
GYMNOGRAMME, il. 159
Gymnogramme calomelanos, 1. 82, ii.
201
Gymnogramme rufa, 1. 79
GYMNOPTERIS, i. 47, li. 290
GYNERIUM, li. I15, 339
Gynerium saccharinum, li. 159
Gynerium saccharoides, 1. 106, il. 73,
277
HABENARIA, i. 213, 469
HAMELITA, 11. 287
HANBURY, letters to Mr. D., 11. 321,
341, 344, 345
HANBURY’S letters to Spruce, ll. 343
Hancornia laxa, 1. 337
HAUXWELL, reference to Mr., ii. 74
ELE DVOLIS, 11. 6232,.5223
fledyotts ericotdes, il. 231
r HELICONIA, il. 278
HELICONIA, 1. 46
HELICOPHYLLUM, li. 100
Flelicteres guazsumefolta, i. 468
HELIOCARPUS, ii. 281
HELIOPHYTUM, ll. 340
flelosis brastliensts, 1. 99
HEMIDYCTIUM, il. 291
Llemtragis aurea, il. 167
HEMITELIA, li. 291
HENRIETTA, i. 39
HENRIQUE ANTON], i. 2013; his
kindness to travellers, i. 291
HMENRIOUNZIA 1. 201, 405.5) 1:S.,, 1.
452; new allied genus, 1. 211
flenriquezta verticillata, 1. 202
FIEPARICA,< eprphyllouss ji: 7c) eat
Tarapoto, ii. 100
HERBERTA, li. 100
HERNDON on snuff, 11. 429
HERPESTES
532
FIBRPESTES, 1. £4177, at).200
Flerpestes chamedryoides, ii. 245
Llerpestes Salzmanntz, 1. 467
HERRERA quoted, 11. 460
HETEROSTEMON, i. 266
Ffleterostemon mtmos, 1. 399
Fleterostemon simplictfolia, 1. 399
HIERACIUM, li. 246
Hlirtella Castgutarensts, li. 70
flirtella physophora, ii. 396
HIsLop, attack on Captain, 1. 126, 131
HOLiUyi4a,1. Ae3
HOOKER, Sir W., letters to, 1. 212,
219, 336, 353, 382, 435, 479, 498,
it. 20456200, 228.7250;0261
HOOKERIA, li. 178
HOOKERIA, ll. 292
Hookeria pallescens, i. 382
Flookerta pendula, \\. 167
House, plan of priest’s, il. 253
HOUSE-PESTS in Sao Gabriel, i. 293
HouskEs at Bafios, 11. 185
HUALLAGA river, ii. 10, 19; rapids
Ol, ie 22
HUMBOLDT, li. 465; on height of
palms, 4: 19); recollections) -o1, 71"
250 5) memories of, 1. 9305,.422
HuMIRIUM, i. 218, 338, ii. 3
Humtrium floribundum, i, 440
‘¢ HUNTING the needle,” i. 253
fydranthelium callitrichotdes, var.,
i. 470
Hydrocharella chetospora, i. 111
HyYDROCHARIDEA, 1. 506
HYDROCOTYLE, 11. 181, 286
Hydrocotyle pusilla, i. 286
HYGROPHILA, i. 418
fylopia grandiflora, i. 67
HYMENAA, 1. 38, 53
HYMENOPHYLLUM, i. 47, ll. 291
HYPERICUM, ll. 181
HyYPNuM, i. 426, 458
Hypnum involvens, i. 383
Hypnum Schrebert, ii. 211
HyYPOLEPIS, li. 166, 291
HYPOLYTRUM, i. 83
HYPOPTERYGIUM, ll. 100
Hypoxts scorzonerefolia, i. 469
Hyptis, ii. 289
Hyptis dilatata, 1. 469
Hyris, 1. 147
IGICAy 11-5252
Icica altissima, 1. 105
INDE X
ISOLEPIS
Icthyothera Cunabt, 1. 469
Llex paraguayensts, il. 453
INCAS, treasure of, i1. 489
INDIAN sailors (Tapuyas), i. 61;
sailors, i. 167 ; philosopher, i. 178 ;
traveller Jacobo, 1. 2645) hunter,
i, 271 3 crew of Canoe, W271, 27 4x5
fishermen, i. 274; flower-collectors,
1. 290; festival, 4° 9302 porters;
habits of, 11. 139; sacred drum,
il. 417 ; spirits or demons, li. 437 ;
Rock-pictures, ii. 474
INDIANS, how to manage, 1. 231 3
scourge themselves, 11. 105 ; morn-
ing drink of, 1. 116; toilet of, i.
1163; injured by Christianising, ii.
225; wild, are not savages, 11.
226
INDIANS’ love of spirits, 1. 272
INDIANS of Ecuador, ii. 253; por-
traits of, i. 255 ; character of,<i.
257
INDIANS of Macu tribe, i.
clay-eating, 1. 340
INDIA-RUBBER trees, enormous area
of growth, 1. 516; of Rio Negro,
Lut V7,
INDIGOFERA, li. 284, 340
INGA, il. 246, 284, 336
Inga micradent@, 1. 337
Inga rutilais, 1. 337
Inga Spruceana, 1. 339
Inga spuria, \. 339
INGAS, 1. 44, ll. 115
INK-PRODUCING shrub, ll. 159
INSECT plagues on Rio Negro, 1.
369, 3733; swarm on Casiquiari,.
1. 3933 migrations, ll. 366
INSECTS as food, i. 483
INUNDATIONS at Santarem, 1. 113,
IONIDIA, il. 249
Lonidium oppositifolium, 1. 99
IPADU 1 217,
IPOME&, 1. 289
TIpomea sericea, 1. 468
IQUITOS, ii. 6
IRIARTEA, 1, 220
Triartea andicita, 1. 169
Triartea exorrhiza, 1. 48
Triartea ventricosa, il. 115, 169
Lsertia parviflora, i. 469
Lsoetes amazonica, 1. 148
ISOLEPIS; 1. 147, 460,279
Lsolepts leucostachya, i. 469
3455
3
4
/
~
SF,
ITAUBA
ITAUBA (Stone tree), i. 97, 160
Ivory palm, ii. 243, 278
Ixora capitellata, 1. 467
Jacquinia armillarts, ii. 318
JAGUAR, ll. 274
JAGUARS, attacks by, i. 122
JAMESON, Dr., described, 11.
life of, ii. 342
JaRA palm,.i. 424, 452
JAUARITE caxoeira, i. 324
JAVITA and Balthazar, neatly kept,
1. 451 |
JEW, a worthy, i. 123
JIBAROS, settlement of, il. 141
JUAN GUERRA, ii. 26
JUNCUS, li. 249
JUNGERMANNIA, li. 100
Jussi@a, il. 285
JSussteua acuminata, i. 467
JSussteua amazonica, i, 154
210 ;
Kyllingia odorata, ii. 428
LACISTEMA, i. 70
Lafoensia denstflora, i. 159
LAGES, excursion to, i. 2363; vege-
fation Of, 1.237 >. visit to, 1. 242
Lagothrix Humboldtit, i. 182
La LAGUNA, ii. 113; self-scourging
ati, TOS
LAMAS, ii. 53-60 ‘
LANTANA, i. 460, 11. 246, 289
LASTR/AEA, 1. 47, ll. 291
LAURACEA, ll. 284
LAUREL type, 1. 37
eaves, forms of, 1. 34, 39; of
trees encased in mosses, ll. 1773 |
sac-bearing, il. 388
Prevvais, 1 33, 220; fruit of, ~i.
44; 14 species seen on Rio Negro,
1. 266
Lecythts amara, i. 495
LEIOSCYPHUS, li. 100
LEJEUNEA, li. 100
LEJEUNIA, i. 383
LEMNA, li. 183
LEOPOLDINA, 1. 422
Leopoldinia pulchra, i. 150
LEPIDOCARYUM, i. 391
LEPIDOZIA, ll. I00
LEPIDOZIA, li. 293
Leptolobium nitens, i. 149
LERIA, ll. 246
INDEX
LYCOPODIA
D6
LETTERS: to Mr. G. Bentham, 1.
207, 208, 227, 290, 298, 328, 334,
348, 380, 502, ii. 30, 48, 73-5,
WOA 1754200. 6207, 211,222)
22A eA sane to: Mr I). Han-
bury, i. 321, 341, 344, 3453 to
Sir William Hooker, i. 212, 219,
336, 353, 382, 435, 479, 498, 1.
ZOAN 209.5225, 250, 2015 to Dr:
Seman yy ioe 224 oto Vir Moi:
Slater, 1.255 ; to Mr. John Smith, i.
225, 264; to Mr. John Teasdale,
1. 237, 238, 241, 268, 348, 373,
403, 470, li. 26, 34, 38, 76, 183,
186, 225, 251, 302, 316, 317, 324
Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, il. 434
Leucobryum glaucumt, i. 451
Leucobryum Martianum, i. 382, 451
LIANAS, i. 28, 32
LICANIA, 1. 13
Licanta latcfolia, i. 82
Licania Turniva, i. 87
LICHENS, fine-coloured, i. 68
LIMON, arrival at, ii. 268 ; Red Bark
trees at, ul. 260; view from, 1.
270): LOCKS at. ail. 2710-7) I seXten=
sive forests of, il. 275
LIPPIA, ii. 340
LIRIO-PAMPA, ll. 61
Lirtosma micrantha, \. 433
LITOBROCHIA, 1. 48, ii. 50, 166
LEALWA, forest of, 11247
LLANERO of Maypures, portrait, 1. 461
LIL.ULLUNDENGO, dangerous pass, il.
266
LOASA, il. 286
LOBELIA, ii. 233
LOMARIA, li. 290
Lonchocarpus Spruceanus, i. 158
LORANTHUS, li. 3, 249, 287, 338
LORETO, li. 5
LORICARIAS, li. 288
Lost in the forest, 1. 92, 96
LOUREIRA, a milk-tree, i. 307
LOWER AMAZON, geology of, i. 134,
140
LUCMAS, visit to, li. 237
LUCUMA, li. 240
LUHEA, i. 431
LUPINUS, ll. 231
EUZEAS In.179
IUZOLAn a. O77,
LycIuM, li. 246
LYCOPODIA, il. 232
LYCOPODIUM
534
LYCOPODIUM, ii. 290
Lycopodium cernuum, i. 82
LYGODIUM, ii. 291
LYSIANTHUS, i. 263, 441
Lystanthus uliginosus, i. 82
MABEA, li. 402, 404
Mabea fistulifera, i, 158
Macapo, pilot of the cataracts, i. 455
M“CULLOGH’S Career. ehO) 7s
MACERANDUBA, Mimusops sp., i. 51
MACLEANIA, li. 282
MACLURA, 11.13
MACROMITRIUM, i. 382, ii. 292
Mact Indians, i. 477; portraits of,
i. 345
MAHICA, i. 71
MAJETA, ll. 394
Mazjeta gutanens?s, i. 395
MALPIGHIACEA, edible fruit, ii. 316
MALPIGHIACEA, il. 281
MALPIGHIAS, 1. 214
MAMMALS, migrations of, li. 376
MANACA Indians, i. 427
MANAOS, i. 200 ; exploration around,
i, §203);) Map Ol; GIsitIct ni. 62200:
to Tarapoto, i. I
MANAQUIRY, visit to, i. 229-31;
residence at. si245 990 brazilian
farmhouse, i. 246
MANDAUACA Indians, 1. 427
Mangifera indica, ii. 336
MANGROVES near Para, i. 4
Manitcaria sacctfera, i. 56
MANIHOT, i. 468
Manthot uttlisstma, i. 11
Map of Llanganati mountains, 11. 494
MAQUIRITARES Indians, i. 409-18
MARABITANAS, 1. 343
MARANA, ants at, i. 453
MARANON, ascent of, ii. 106
MARANTA, 1. 47, li. 278
Maranta Vizao, ii. 304
MARATTIA, li. 166, 169, 205
Marcgraavia umbellata, i. 30, ii. 282
MARCHANTIA, li. 100
MARCKEA, il. 401
Marckea ctliata, i. 401
MARGINARIA, il. 205
MARTYNIA, li. 340; a desert species,
li. 334
MASTIGOBRYUM, i. 383, ii. 147
MAUGIN on caapl, il. 430
Mauria juglandifolia, i. 162
INDEX
MONKEYS
MAUDRITIA, i. 425, 452
Mauritia aculeata, i. 49
Mauritia carinata, i. 268
Mauritia flexuosa, i. 14
Mauritia subinervis (fig.), 1. 500
Mauritia vinifera, i. 14
MAXIMILIANA, 1. 220, 441
Maximeliana regia, i. 45, 223
Mayaca Michauxti, i. 71
Mayaca Sellowinna, 1. 71
MAYIRONA Indians, ii. 5
MAYNA, i. 83
Mayna laxiflora, i. 470
MAYO river, il. 25
MAYPuRES, village “of, 71 454);
country round, i. 456; the rapids
of, 1. 4573 list of plants of, 1. 467-
70
MAYTENUS, ii. 338
MEDICAGO, 1. 181
MEDICINE-MEN, il. 430-438
MELASTOMA, 1. 214
MELASTOMACE abundant, il. 267
MELASTOMAS, 1. 42
MELILOTUS, ii. 340
MELOCHIA, ll. 281
MEMECYLEA, i. 338
MENDOZIA, li. 290
MENISCIUM, i. 47, li. 50, 291
MERTENSIA, lil. 115
METEORIA, li. 292
MICONIA, i. 433, ll. 286
Micropterygium lecophyllum, 1. 497
MIKANIA, ll. 339
MIKANIA, il. 288
MILK-TREE of Para, i. 50
MILKWORTS, 1. 43
MIMOSA, i. 460, ii. 246; type, 1..34
MIMOSEA, li. 301
Mimosa asperata, i.
li. 284, 339
Mimosa microcephala, i. 468
Mimosa orthocarpa, \. 86
MIRAFLORES, il. 232
MISSIONS, disappearance of, i. 470
MISTLETOES, i. 33
Mocua, description of, il, 230 .
MOLLIA, 1. 41
Mollia spectosa, i. 220
MOLLUGO, il. 283
Monacas, pueblo of, 1. 396
MONKEY, a savoury, i. 182
MONKEY-PODS, 1. 5
MONKEYS, ii. 274
171, 399, 504,
SPATS
By
F
we
2
¥
r
4
4
MONNINA
MONNINA, ii. 245, 281
Monopteryx angustifolia, 1. 335
MOonrE ALEGRE, 1. 61
MosgQuirTokrs and biting flies, 1. 369,
373
Moss, a solace in his troubles, ii. 140
MossEs, at Tarapoto, il. 1003
abundant, ii. 147, 166, 177, 247
MOTILON, ii. 249
MOUNTAIN-FORESTS of Sad Gabriel,
i, 289
Mt. TUNGURAGUA, difficulties of, ii.
206
MourEIRA = Cabuquena, i. 261
Mourtria Apiranga, i. 163
MUCUNA, ii. 284
MumMBACA palm, i. 153.
Muntingia Calaburu, ii. 281, 339
Muranda minor, i. 508
Muranda siphonotdes, i. 508
MURDER, attempted by slave, 1. 241
MorRIXI, i. 67
MURUMURU palms, i. 91
Mut IsIA, ii. 288
Mycteria Americana, ii. 20
MYRCIA, i. 433
MyRCcIA, li. 265, 286
MyRrICA, li. 279
Myrio-colea trrorata, il. 167
MYRIOPHYLLUM, ll. 183
MyYRISTICA, li. 300
MyYRMECODIA, Iii. 409
MYRMIDONE, li. 394
Myrmidone macrosperma, il. 394
Myrmidone rotundifolia, ii. 395
Myrodia brevifolia, i. 338
MYRSINEA, 1. 218, il. 289
INDEX
MYRTLES, i. 38, 42
MyRTUS, ii. 182
MYTILOPSIS, li. 100
NAIS, 11. 340
NAMEs of district, changes of, 1. 503;
inconveniences of, 1. 504
NAMES of places often changed, i.
72
Napo river, track from Puca-yacu to,
lil. 124
Narcorics, Amazonian, ll. 414
Narrows of Huallaga, i. 21
NAUTA, li. 6, 29, 30-343; vegetation
Ol iis. 7
Neckera disticha, i. 24
- ORINOCO,
Neckera gracillima, ii. 210
PADRE
ISS
NEEA, i. 469, il. 300
NEGRO mason, a respectable, i, 493
NEPHRODIUM, il. 291
Nephrodium Serra, i. 83
NEPHROLEPIS, ii. 291
Neptunta oleracea, \. 115
Niopo snuff, 1. 426-30
NIPHOBOLUS, ll. 291
NOCTURNAL disturbance, i. 277
NOMADIC tribes, i. 477
NONATELIA, ii. 2, 249, 287
Nonatelia guianensts, 1. 97
NORANTEA, li. 282
Norantea gutanensis, i. 98, li. 240
NUTMEG trees, il. 3
Nynphea Salemannt, i. 83
OBYDOs, excursion -to; 1.7773
at, i. 813 flowers at, i. 81
OCHROMA, i. 37, ii. 281
Ocotea cymbarum, \. 161
Octoblepharum albtdum, i. 382
Octoblepharum cylindricum, 1. 382
ODONTOGLOSSUM, il. 250, 278
CENOCARPUS, i. 498 ; fine drink from
the fruits of, 1. 477-8
Enocarpus Bacaba, 1. 226
nocarpus distichus (fig.), 1. 222
Cnocarpus Patawa, ii. 115
OILS, vegetable, i. 479-80
OMPHALANTHUS, i. 383
ONCIDIUM, ll. 250, 279
ORANGERIES, fine, ll. 301
ORCHIDE# abundant at Guataxf, ii.
240
ORCHIDS in forest of Lalla, ii. 250;
abundant, li. 278
ORCHIS, 1. 360-1
ORELLANA on the ‘‘ Amazons,”’ ii.
457
stay
information as to the
SOUNCES Olgal e253. 357 5, ote: On
sources of, 1. 447
Orimosta coccinea, i. 432
Ormosta excelsa, 1. 153
Outea acaciefolia, i. 149, 398
OVIEDO quoted, i. 461
O©XALIS, Jl 205.2823
OXYBAPHUS, il. 340
PACIMONI river, ascent of, 1. 423;
vegetation of Serras, 1. 433; fine
view from a rock, i. 434
PADRE ARNAOUD, a Zambo, i. 451
PADRE
536
PADRE TORQUATO, i. 172
PAGAMEA, 1. 441
PALOZOIC rocks of Lower Amazon,
1. 140
Palicourea riparia, \. 72
PALLATANGA, a poor locality, il. 224
Palma Jagua, i. 441
PAEMS *1. 43s height] of Wia1or
letter about, i. 225
PANAX, ii. 286
PANICUM, li. 277
Panicum amplex, ii. 115
Panicum latifolium, i. 469
PANURE, arrival at, i. 318
BAO, MUbAgTO, 1) Uys .ell4 6.) 4
PAPALANTHUS, 1. 418
PAPER, burning his botanical, ii, 143
PaRA, residence at, i. 2; vegetation
near, i. 2; vegetable products of,
le 5Osmerity 1 mo
PARAMERO, effects of, ii. 192 ; sound
of, il. 195
PARAMO DE SANANCAJAS, il. 230;
of Tiocajas, il. 232
PARAMOS of Azuay, alpines of, i.
250
PARANA-MIR{ DOS RAMOS, i. 174
PARASITIC AI treeS a 1.82)5
PARIANA, a grass, i. 17
PARINARI, ii. 8; Easter feast at,
i. 8
Parkia americana, \. 424
Parkia discolor, i. 104
Parkinsonia aculeata, ii. 338
PASPALA, ll. 246
PASPALUM, 1. 441
Paspalum conjugatum, ii. 277
Paspalum pellitum, i, 158
Paspalum pyramidale, 1. 109-10, 506
PASSIFLORA, 11. 280, 339
Passifiora fetida, i. 6
PASTASA river, ascent of, ii.
dangerous descent to, ll. 157
PATAUVA palm, i. 477
PAULEINIA, 1: 3 lis, 200,422
Paullinia capitata, i. 468
Paullinia Cupana, i. 180, il. 450
Paullinia pinnata, i. 162, il. 455
Paxtuba barriguda, i. 307
PaYTA to Chira, 11, 332
PECCARIES, a hunt of, il. 10
PECCARY, al. 274
Pectis elongata, i. 157
PELTOGYNE, 1. 38, 53
107 ;
INDEX
PISTIA
Penelope cristata, ii. 377
PENIPE, visit to, il. 203 ; bridge of,
described, 11. 219
PEPEROMIA, 1. 33, ll. 283; fern-like,
1520
Perama hirsuta, 1. 441, 467
PERIDIUM, i. 83
Peristerta Humboldtit, i. 458
Persea gratissima, i. 376
PERU, desert of Northern, ii. 327-30
PESCHIERA, ii. 288
Peschiera latifiora, i. 71
PETIOLES, inflated, 11. 397
PETIVERIACEA, il. 182
PHASCUM, 1. 382
PHASEOLUS, ll. 245, 284
Phaseolus monophyllus, i. 468
PHEGOPTERIS, li. 291
PHILODENDRON, ll. 277
PHILODENDRONS, 1. 497
PHLEBODIUM, i. 467
PHRAGMICOMA, 1. 383
PHYLLANTHUS, i. 280
Phyllanthus fiwitams, i. 115, 230,
505
Phyllanthus salviefolius, 1. 105
Phyllogium fulgens, ii. 140
PHYLLOGONIUM, il. 100, 147
Phymatodes Schomburgkit, i. 401
PHYSALIS, il. 340
PHYSOCALYMMA, 1. 265, il. 44
PHYTELEPHAS, il. 6
Phytelephas equatorialis, ii. 132
Phytelephas microcarpa (fig.), ii. 133
PIAROA Indians, i. 454
PIASSABA palm, gregarious, 1. 422;
got specimens of, 1. 499
PICHINCHA mountain, ascent of, i.
214
PICTURE-WRITING, on Rio Negro, i.
260; in Casiquiari, 1. 395-400 ;
Indian, il. 474
PIEDRA DEL Cocuf, drawing of, i.
346
PILEA, ll. 279 ©
PIMICHIN, condition of road, i. 450
PINCHES NUEVO, ii. 110
PINDO, the Jibaro settlement, ii. 14
PINDOBA palm, i. 66, 87
PIPERACEA, li. 283
Piptadenta Niopo, ii. 426
PIRARUCU, i. 177
PIS@iA Ge rT
Pistia Strattotes, 1. 55
sei:
~
af:
at’ ‘hatbabes eat eet *
Pt ee ea a, ee oe ee
PITCH
Pirem, native, 1. 52
PITHECOLOBIUM, ii. 182; at Para,
165
Pithecolobium caulifiorum, i, 150
PIU RA, mW. 333 ; residence at, 11. 324-7
P1uRA and Chira, notes on, il. 327 ;
vegetation of, ii, 333-40
PPUANGIGEHILA, 1. 383, 497, ll. 147,
292
PLANTAGO, ii. 231, 232, 264
PLANTAINS, eaten by dogs, i. 376
PLANTS, gathered by swimming, i.
169; estimate of species in
Amazon valley, ii. 208; new
species left in Uaupés, ii. 208
PLANTS and animals, relations of, 1i.
362
Platycarpum orinocense, 1. 470
PLATYMISCIUM, li. 402 -
PLEOPELTIS, i. 48, ii. 291
PLEROMA, i. 469
PLUMIERA, i. 467
Plumiera phagedenica, 1. 67
PODOCARPUS, il. 265
PODOSTEMACEA, li. 283
PODOSTEMAS, i. 319
PODOSTEMON, i. 418
PODOSTEMONS, 1. 267
POLYBOTRIA, il. 290
POLYCARPAA, li. 283
Polycarpea brasiliensis, 1. 146
POLYGALA, i. 214, ll. 159, 318
POLYGALA, 1. 157
Polygala gracilis, 1. 467
Polygala paniculata, i. 281
Polygala subtilis, i. 441
Polygala variabilis, i. 467
Polygala vulgaris, 1. 43
POLYGALEA, 1. 453, ll. 182; and
ants, il. 401-2
POLYGONUM, i. 399
POLYLEPIS, li. 265
POLYPODIUM, ll. 205, 291
Polytrichum juniperinum, i. 71
PONCIANO, pueblo of, i. 394
PONTEDERIA, i, 400, ii. 279, 301
Pontederta crassipes, 1. 56
PORAQUEIBA Sp., 1. 339
PORELLA, ii. 100 ©
PORTULACA, li. 283, 340
POSOQUERIA, 1. 42
POTTERY-MAKING, i. 12
POUROUMA, 1. 26; sp., i. 339
POZUELOS village of, i1. 300
NIE xX
RED
De,
PRAIN, Lieut.-Col., on Tococo, i.
409
PRIMEVAL forests, i. 17
Prosopis horrida, ii. 335
PROTEACEZ, frequent on Rio Negro,
ie 2O1
PROVISIONS for voyage, 1. 273
PsIDIA, ll. 286
RSLDEUMe 5339
Psidium ovalifolium, i. 163
Psophia crepitans, 1. 340
PSYGHODTRIA, de .42
Psychotria limbata, 1. 469
PTERIS, ll. 291
Pteris caudata, i.
291
PTEROBRYUM, ll. 100
Pterocarpus ancylocalyx, ii. 398
PUCA-WACU, village,” 11) 123): track
frome to themNapon i. 242; ane
view of Andes from, il. 127
PUCA-YACU river, il. 117
PuMA in Tarapoto, ii. 80
PUPUNHA palm, i. 223
Purvts river, ii. 2
60, 215.) 11, 290;
QUALEA, 1. 441
Qualea acuminata, i. 338
QUICHUA terms explained, 11. 511
QUININE, local objection to, 11. 272
QUIRABUENA, on Casiquiari, 1. 391
QUIRIQUIRY lake, i. 85
OQUIro;, visit*to, 1.202
RACIONALES and Peones, 1. 471
RAFFLESIACEA, plant allied to, ii, 207
RAFT, construction of, i. 304
RAFT-VOYAGE to Guayaquil, ii. 307
RAIN in desert, effects of, 11. 318
RALEIGH on the ‘“ Amazons,” il. 467
RANDIA, i. 43, 468, ii. 287
RANUNCULUS, ll. 181, 231, 249
Raphia tedigera, i. 45
RAPIDS, first, on Rio Negro, i. 262 ;
great, of Rio Negro, i. 278, 286
RATTLESNAKE, escape from, il. 10
RAYNAL, Abbé, il. 459
REBELLION of 1835, i. OI
RED BARK, supposed use of, 11. 272
RED BARK forests, vegetation of, 11.
276
RED BARK trees, li. 243 ; search for,
il. 237; seedlings and cuttings of,
li. 294-5
538
REMIJIA, i. 433, 440, ii. 405
Remijia physophora, ii. 396
REVOLUTION, in Peru, ii. 77-9; in
' Ecuador, ii. 251
RHACOPILUM, ii. 100
Rhacopilum polythrinctum, ii. 292
Rhacopilum tomentosum, ii. 292
RHAMNUS, ii. 249, 337
Rhexia leptophylla, i. 468
RHIPIDOPTERIS, li. 290
RHIZOBOLEA, i. 422
RHYNCHOSPORA, i. 468
RIBEIRO, H. de, ii. 462
IRICCTAS 159055
RICE, gathering wild, i. 235
RIOBAMBA, ll. 213 ; visits Dr. Taylor
at, 11. 190; fatiguing journey to,
li. 191; description of, ii. 196,
203; snowy peaks seen from, i.
199; with Dr. J. Taylor, it. 232
Rio NEGRO, entrance of, i. 200;
REMIJIA
INDEX
voyage up, il. 259; voyage down,
i. 487; plants seen during voyage
down, 1. 494-5
RIo VERDE, arrival at, ii. 160; cas-
cade of, ii. 161
RIVER-BANKS, description of, i. 234
RIVER voyage, enjoyment and _ perils
of, in 27/6
RIVERS, as affecting health, i. 117
RoapD from Pimichin to Javita, i.
450
Roapbs, none in Ecuador, il. 224
Rocella tinctoria, ii, 320
ROCHEFORT on medicine-men,
432
ROCK, rarely seen in Andes, i. 235
Rocks in Aripecurt, i. 100; in the
Casiquiarl, i. 396
il.
Koos, of palms, exsertedj a.) 22%
aerial, 1. 24
ROUPALA sp., ll. 182
RUBBER, how produced, 1. 511;
price in 1849, i. 511; increased
use of, i. 5125 how prepared, 1.
55,3) Export trom). bara sles5 aise
supply in the Amazon valley in-
exhaustible, i. 516
RUBBER-COLLECTING, i. 185
RUBIACE# at Tarapoto, ii. 99
RUBIADS, abundance of, 1. 42
Rubia Relboun, i. 287
RUBUS, li. 284
RUDGEA, i. 468
SAO c
RUMEX, ll. 264
RUPPRECHTIA, li. 402
Rupprechtia Jamesont, i. 405
RUYSCHIA, 1. 433
SACRED drun, il. 417
ST. JOHN, Feast of, i. 246-54
Salix cinerea, i. 339
Salix Humboldtiana, i. 60, 106, 504,
li. 3, 7, 336
SALSAPARILLA, iil. 2433; how ‘ob-
tained, i. 312, 316
SALTING an ox, i. 462
Salvertia convallarioides, 1. 159
SALVIA, li. 249
SALVINIA, i. III
SALVINIA, i. 506
Salvinia hispida, i. 83
SANANCAJAS, paramo of, li. 192
SAN CARLOS, famine at L348 5
danger from Indians at, i. 348-52 ;
excessive damp at, i. 381; casa
real of, i. 472; effect of spirits
on Indians of, i. 474-5; the
recent growth of, 1. 475; thunder-
storms at, 1. 484
SAN CUSTODIO, 1. 431
SANDSTONE of Lower Amazon, i. 137
SAN FERNANDO DE ATABAPO, 1.
4513 its inhabitants, 1. 452; to
Maypures, i. 4535. returnmnoyrs.
462
SANGAY, explosions of, heard at Puca-
yacu, li. 129
SANGUISORBEA, li. 285
SAN Josk, old painting of, 1. 455 7
SAN REGIS, li. 7 ‘
SANTA Cruz, on Casiquiari, 1. 391 >|
STA. ISABEL, i. 425-30 %
SANTANDER, deserted pueblo, ii. 109 i
SANTANDER, Spruce’s account of, ii. e
345; his letter to Spruce, i. 347, 4
349-52 :
SANTAREM, i. 62; voyage to, 1. 543 -
river at, i. 64; campos at, 1. 65; z
vegetation at, i. 66-72, mistletoes =
at, i. 68; residence at, i. 103; %
inundations at, i. 113; sickness Re
at, i. 117; explorations Sabi.
119
Sa6 GABRIEL, atrive at, i. 286;
criminals at, i. 2933; views of, 1.
296-7; in 1854, 1. 493
Sad JERONYMO, residence at, 1. 319
SAO INDEX
SAO PAULO, il. 2
Sapindus cerasinus, i. 162
SAPOTACEOUS fruits, ii. 316
SARA-YACU river, ii. 119; gold in, ii.
119; village, ii. 120
SARCOSTEMMA, li. 339
SAURAUJA, ll. 282
SCALIA, ii. 100
Schiekia ortnocensis, i. 467
SCHLOTHEIMIA, il. 292
SCHNELLA, i. 38
Schnella splendens, i. 28
SCIRPUS, ii. 340
Scirpus validus, ii. 219
SCLERDA, Wm. 277; sp., 1. 360
SCLEROLOBIUM, ii. 397
Sclerolobium odoratissimum, i. 398
Sclerolobtum paniculatum, ii. 398
Sclerolobium tinctorium, i. 398
Scoparia dulcis, ii. 340
SCORPIONS and centipedes, ii. 70
SEALING-WAX tree, i. 5
SEASONS, i. 2
SECURIDACA, i. 43
SELAGINELLA, i. 454, 468, ii. 25,
290; climbing, ii. 205
Selaginella Parkert, \. 47
SEMANN, Dr., letter to, i. 224
SENDTNERA, ii. 293
SENECIOS, ll. 250
SERFANTIA, 1, 38, ii. 4, 281
SERJANIAS, i. 228
SERPA, 1. 195
SERRA DO GAMA, collection at, i. 297 ;
expedition to, i. 303, 312
SERRAS D’ ALMEIRIM, i. 60
SETARIA, i. 441
SHIRURI, a deserted village, ii. 106
SHUNA, the crossing of, ii. 148
SIAPA river, i. 392
Sida slomerata, ii, 281, 285
Sida Pichinchensis, ii. 264
SILENE, ii. 181
SILK-COTTON tree (fig.), i. 186
SILK-COTTON trees, 1. 18
Stmaruba versicolor, i. 72
SIPANEA, i. 433
Stpanea acinifolia, 1. 469
Stpanea glomerata, i. 469
Sepanea limnophila, i. 154
Stpanea ocymordes, i. 71
Stpanea radicans, i. 468
Stpanea rupicola, i. 433
SIPHOCAMPYLI, ii. 287
SPRUCE
Boe
SIPHONIA, 1. 37
Siphonia brevifolia, 1. 507
Stphonia elasteca, i. 508
Stphonia lutea, i. 451, 507
Stphonia Spruceana, i. 153
SISYMBRIUM, li. 281
SLATER, Ma. MB, letter to, 1. 255
SMIUAX. I 20,407,011... 270
SMITH, letters to Mr. John, i. 225,
264
SNAKE-BITE, fatal, seen by Spruce,
in 3075 elfects: Of, 11. 62-5
SNAKES, ii. 274; and swine, 1. 340;
venomous, il. 66
SNUFF, native, ii. 426-30
Sobralia dichotoma, i. 360
SOCIAL customs in Ecuador, ll. 252
SOLANA, li. 289
SOLANO, old village on Casiquiari,
1. 390
SOLANUM, ii. 406
Solanum Jamaicense, i. 303
Solanum nigrum, ii. 340
SOLANUMS at Para, i. 5
SOLIMOEsS, vegetation of, ii. 3
SONCHUS, ii. 340
SouNDs of life on Amazon, i. 168 ;
strange, in forest, i. 423 ; mysteri-
ous, ll. 438-44
SouTHEY, 7st. of Brazzl, il. 462
Spartium junceum, i. 163
SPECIES of plants in Amazonia, il.
208
SPECIMENS collected during voyage
up the Rio Negro, i. 265
SPHAGNOECETIS, i. 383
SPIDERS, bites of, ii, 67
SPINNING, cotton-, ii. 82
SPONDIAS, edible fruit, ii. 316
SPONIA, il. 279
SPRUCE, atekana, s1i-7 50-53; at
Canipiyasiee7 N55 cate Wavlaue vil
15-50; at—Santarem, 1. 62-76,
108-165; at Obydos, i. 81-84;
mm Wrombetas’ river, 1. S5-107 ;
lost in forest, 1.92, 96; and King,
accident to, i. 120; at Manaos, i.
203-58, 495-504; at Sad Gabriel,
i. 289-316; up the Uaupés river,
ln t7-A 2 letter. tO) CALs eRe eaWe
irom ,Uaupes, i 3105" letter to
A. R. W. from San Carlos, 1. 329 ;
hard work on Uaupés, i. 336;
besieged in San Carlos, i. 348-52 ;
540
SPRUCE
at San Carlos, 1. 348-84; stung by
ants, 1. 362-6 ; escapes from snakes,
i, 366; journey to Maypures on
‘the Orinoco, i. 449-70; at May-
pures, 1. 454-70; dangerous ill-
ness of, at San Fernando, i. 463;
threat to poison him, i. 466; plot
to kill him, i. 487-93; virulent
chilblains at San Carlos, i. 499;
confidence in Indians, 1. 500; at
Nauta, al. 6-7, 20-3405 sat evict
maguas, il. I1-19; at Tarapoto,
ll. 37-101 ; residence at Tarapoto,
ll. 37; cures a snake-bite, ii. 62-5;
stung by caterpillars, ii. 71-3; his
dog mad from fright, 11. 104; at
La Laguna, 11. 105-6; at Andoas,
ll hiie 15s at cala-yacu ia 120%:
at “Puca-yacu, a: 120 30-ei-at
Canelos). i. j1 203) ate Banossat-
167-85, 218; at Ambato, ii. 186,
199-209, 223-53; at Riobamba,
ll. 1190-90," 213120.) at O@uito;, a:
209-12; in the forests of Alaust,
11, 228-50; in the Cinchona forests,
ll. 258-306; at Guayaquil, ii. 302-
24; on shores of Pacific, il. 312;
modes offeworking Sil eaiAe seat
Daule, il. 314; at Chanduy, ii. 317;
loss of savings, il. 320; at Piura,
ll. 324; in England, ii..343; on
plant and animal relations, ii.
362; on ant-agency in_ plant-
structure, 11. 388; later views of,
on ant-agency, ii, 4II-12; on
narcotics and stimulants, i. 413 ;
on ‘‘medicine”-men, iil. 430; on
Indian spirits or demons, ll. 437 ;
on strange forest sound and _ its
cause, il. 4383 on rarity of cura-
tive drugs among Indians, 11. 444 ;
on use of guarana, iil. 448; on
cupana, ll. 450; on guayusa, il.
4533 on women-warriors, il. 456 ;
on Indian Rock-pictures, 11. 474;
on a hidden treasure of the Incas,
i. 489, 490
STABLER, Mr. G., ii. 413
STACHYS, li. 231, 245, 289
STACHYTARPHETA, li. 285, 289
Stachytarpheta mutabtls, i. 468
STARS, brilliancy of reflected, i. 270
STEDMAN on medicine-men, i. 433
Stelis calodyction, i. 278
INDEX
i.
ee
TARAPOTO
STELLARIA, 11.317 203
STEMODIUM, li. 340
STEMS, elongated, ii. 401
Stenolobtum ceruleum, i. 87
STIMULANTS, Indian, il. 446 :
STIPA, ll. 231,208 ‘
SToRY of a slave, 1. 443-7
STRANGE sounds in forest, ii. 438-
44
STREAMS of hot water, ll. 20
Streptopogon erythrodontus, ii. 210
Strychnos brastliensts, i. 159, 164
Strychnos rondeletioides, 1. 164, 3375
ll. 377
SuCA-UBA, i. 67
SWARTZIA, 1. 26
Swartzia argentea, i. 398
Swartzia grandtfolia, 1. 97, 433
Swartsia microstyles, 1. 469
SYMMERIA, ll. 402
SYRRHOPODON, i. 382
TABATINGA, ll. 4
TABERNEMONTANA, 1. 468
TABLAS, Rio de, 11. 267
TACHIA, ll. 402
TACHIGALIA, i. 338, li. 397, 404
Tachigalia caripes, ii. 397
Tachigalia ptychophysca, i. 397
TACUARI, 1. 259
TAGETES, 11. 266
TAGIPURU, Canal de, 1. 55
TAMARIND, 1. 70
Tantalus loculator, migrations of, 11.
373
TAPAJOZ river, i. 64
TAPIR, hunt of, in water, ii. 119
TARAPOTO, ride from Juan Guerra,
il, 353 residence at, ll. 37-101 ;
description of, il. 38-47, 49; tem-
perature at, ii. 473; European
genera at, ii. 48; ferns at, ii. 50;
Campana mountain, ii. 51-56;
Lamas (view of), ii. 55; botanical
excursions, li. 83 ; roads, ii. 84-89 ;
rest-houses (tambos), ii. 88; col-
lecting near, ii. 90 ; Guayrapurima
mountain, ii. 91 ; fern locality very
rich, ii. 92; mountains north of
(view), ii. 94; Cerro Pelado, i.
95; Potrelo, ii. 96; Pmgulla
mountain, ii. 96; Tabalosos (view
at), li. 97; species collected at, 11.
100 ; to Canelos in canoes, li. 102
ee
TARUMA
TARUMA waterfall,
1. 495
PAUAU, visit to, 1. 15; pottery of,
ito brazilenut trees at, 4. 16 ;
vegetation of, 1. 46; fern-valleys
YE a a ar
TAYLOR, visit to Dr. James, il. 190
TEASDALE, letters to Mr. John, 1.
237, 238, 241, 268, 348, 373,
Aa, 270; 1. 26, 34, 33, 76, 183,
186, 225, 251, 302, 316, 317, 324
PBCONA I: 27, 37, 150, 1.. 236
Tecoma toxophora, 1. 209
Teletanthera peruviana, ii. 340
TENITIS, li. 291
Tephrosia nitida, i. 86
Tephrosia toxicarza, i. 86
TERMINALIA, 1. 150, 424
Tessaria legitima, il. 4, 288, 339
THALIA, 1. 47
THALICTRUM, il. 266
Theobroma Spruceana, i. 82
THEVET on medicine-men, ii. 434
Thevetia nertifolia, i. 343
DHIBAUDIA, 1.282
THUNDERSTORMS, i. 49;
able, i. 484
THYOPSIELLA, ll. 100
Tiaridium indicum, li. 301, 340
TILIACEA, ii. 281
TILLAA, ii. 181
TILLANDSIA, 1. 33
TOADS, huge, 1. 49
TOBACCO as medicine, il. 435
MOCOGAs 1) 335, 11. 388
Tococa bullifera, 11. 390
Tococa disolenia, 1. 390
Tococa macrophysca, i. 391
Tococa parvifiora, iil. 391
Tococa plantfolia, li. 391
Tococa pterocalyx, il. 391, 405
Tococa scabriuscula, i. 83
Tocoyena puberula, i. 67
Tocoyena velutina, 0.S., i. 467
Tomo, on the Guainia, i. 450
TONQUIN bean, i. 483
Topo river flooded, i1.
days’ delay at, 11. 157
Tortula agraria, ii. 100
Tortula denticulata, ii. 210
TORTULA, 11. 100
TRACHYPUS, il. 292
TRAIL, Prof., on Tococa, li. 409
TREASURE of Incas, Note on, il. 513
excursion to,
remark-
14Q);- three
IGN GIDE:
VASIVA
541
TREE, supposed poisonous, li. 239
TREES, buttresses of, i. 20, 23 ; broken
down by mosses, ii. 147
TRICHILIA, ti. 283
TRICHOMANES, i. 47, ll. 244, 291
TRICHOPOGON, 1. 441
TRIPLARIS, ll. 283, 402
Triplaris Schomburgki2, ii. 403
Triplaris surinamensts, i. 3, 402-5
TROMBETAS river, the, i. 77 ; ascent
Often 85
TRUMPETER and snakes, 1. 340
TRUNKS, forms of, i. 25 ; perforated,
ie, 6)
TUCANDERA ant, sting of, i. 362-6
TucANO Indians, ii. 5
TUNGURAGUA, grand cone of, i1. 178;
very woody, il. 181; cataract on,
ll. 203
TURNERA, 1. 467
TURTLE, modes of cooking, i. 239
EURUREi 28
TUSSACIA, 1. 468
Tussari, chief of Maquiritares, i.
A 2.) WOKKalte col 1 yal eins
travels; is 41-2
Typha Truxillensis, ii. 340
UANAUACA, i. 263
UauprEs Indians,
325, 328
UAUPES river, expedition to, i. 317,
342; riseand fall of, i. 332; vege-
tation of, i. 337; Picture-writing
in, 11. 482-8
UMBELILIFER, new minute, il. 232
WINCARTA, 1.6287
Uncarta gutanensis, 1. 29, ii.
397
URANIA SDs, 1. 329
URARINAS, il. IO
URUBU -coaRA, on the Uaupés, i.
322; Bernardo’s house, i. 323
UTRICULARIA, 1. 147, 469
UTRICULARIA, 1. 453
Utricularia quingueradiata, i. 157
Utricularia Spruceana, i. 148
portraits of, i.
2076
WIACCIN UA, Mi 207,422.52
VALERIANA, ll. 181, 231, 264, 287
VALVERDE, story of, li. 490
VAN HEUVEL, il. 461, 470
Varronia rotundifolia, ii. 338
VASIVA lake, entrance to, i. 393, 423
5 A 2 VEGETABLE
VEGETABLE Ivory palm, il. 131
VEGETABLE oils, letter on, 1. 479
VEGETABLE products of Para, i. 50
VEGETATION, aspects of, at Santarem,
1, £455 ‘of » Remi sand ~Atabapo
rivers, 1. 4525) 0f KiowNeero, a:
494; of Solimoés, ii. 3
VELASCO quoted, 11. 460, 465
VERBENACEA, li. 182
Verbena littoralts, li. 340
VERNONIA, il. 288
Vernonta polycephala, ii, 288
VERONICA, lil. 181
Victoria amazonica, i. 75
VILLAGES deserted, 115 1106
ViILuA Nova, i. 172
VILLAVICENCIO, Dr. M., il. 424-5
VIOLA, ll. 181, 264
VIOLET trees, 1. 43
VISMIA, li. 300
Vismita guianensis, \. 5
Vismia macrophylla, i. 399
VITEX, edible fruit, 11. 316
Vitex ortnocensts, 1. 469
Vochysia ferrugined, i. 158, ll. 44
VOLCANIC boulders, localities of, i.
135, 143
VOLCANIC rocks, Professor Branner
on, 1. 144; suggested origin of,
1 145
VOYAGE to Santarem, i. 54; to the
Rio Negro, i. 166; up Huallaga
LIVEN, Wi. #LQ
WAFER on Indian customs, ll. 419,
436
INDEX
ZANNY
‘WALLACE, A. R., ii. 4593 at point
of death, i. 267
WATER-LILIES, annual, i. 76
WEINMANNIA, ii. 76, 285
Weissta calcarea, i. 98
WERNERIA, ll. 250, 264
WERNERIA, il. 231, 288
Werneria nubigena, i. 231
WETTINIA, 11. 169
Wettinia Maynensis, ii. 136, 443
WoMEN warriors, ii. 456-73
Woop, a remarkable, ii. 238
Wuilffia stenoglossa, i. 468
XINGU, mouth of, i. 60
XIPHOPTERIS, 11. 290
XYLOPIA, i. 399
Xylopia salicifola, 1. 467
Xylopia Spruceana, i. 338
XYRIDES, i. 157
XYRIDS, i. 453
YABAHANAS Indians, i. 427
YAGUACHI river, ii. 236
YAMADU, the mythical, i. 423
Yangua tinctorza, ii. 38
YELLOw fever at Para, i. 116
YUCA DEL MONTE, li. 334
YURIMAGUAS, ii. 113 history of, ii.
12; church of (drawing), ii. 13; an
admirable priest, ii. 15 ; industry,
food, etc., of, 1.) 175 -n6
ZANNY, visit to Senhor, i. 230
THE END
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