MISCELLAJTEA. 143 



Eio Negro. This village was his head-quarters during his stay- 

 in Venezuela, which extended to November, 1854, or more than a 

 year and a half. During that time he made two expeditions to the 

 Orinoco — one by the way of the Casiquiari, and the other by the 

 portage of Pinichin and the Atabapo. On the former of these? 

 besides examining the Casiquiari, both ascending and descending, he 

 explored its tributary, the Pacimoni, to its source, among the lofty 

 and picturesque mountains called Imei and Tibiali, as also the river 

 Cunucuuuma, which bathes the western foot of the immense granite 

 mass of Dinda, and enters the Orinoco a little below the bifurcation 

 of the Casiquiari. On his second visit to the Orinoco he went as far 

 down as the cataracts of Maypures, rendered famous by the narrative 

 of Humboldt and Bonpland. There and elsewhere, in the region of 

 the Upper Orinoco and Eio Negro, he gathered many of the plants 

 discovered by those illustrious travellers, and which had not been 

 seen since by any botanist. He also constructed maps of the hitherto 

 unsurveyed rivers Cunucuntima and Pacimoni. 



Leaving Venezuela, Dr. Spruce descended the Eio Negro, and 

 reached the Barra do Eio Negro about the end of 1854, after an 

 absence of above three years. Having reposed there over two months, 

 he took'advantage of the steamers which had been lately established 

 on the Amazon to ascend that river beyond the Brazilian frontier to 

 Nauta in Peru, near the mouth of the Ucayali, and thence went 

 in canoes up the Maraiion, and its tributary the Huallaga, to 

 Tarapoto, a large and thriving town in the ancient province of 

 Maynas. In the lovely valley of Tarapoto — which, like many 

 similar ones in the eastern roots of the Andes, will one day be the 

 site of a magnificent city, when the immense resources of the 

 Amazon valley, and its unrivalled fluvial system shall have been fully 

 developed— he remained nearly two years, and collected there, 

 besides a vast variety of other plants, no fewer than 250 species of 

 ferns in an area of only fifty miles in diameter. 



In March, 1857, Dr. Spruce left Tarapoto for Ecuador, descending 

 the Huallaga to its confluence with the Maranon, and then ascending 

 the latter river and its affluents the Pastasa and Bombonasa to Cane- 

 los ; :finally, through the forest of Canelos on foot to the village of 

 Banos, at the foot of the volcano of Tunguragua, In this disastrous 

 journey, which occupied a hundred days, he had to abandon all 

 his goods in the forest to escape perishing of hunger at the passage 

 of swollen rivers. Making Bailos his head- quarters, he devoted above 



