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 

 right. In all these falls stones which have 12 

 feet or more of water over them in tlood 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 then- i 

 track leading to Tarapoto, occupying about thn ' 

 hours with mules. Another hour and we 

 entered the mouth of the Mayo, a .omc\ 

 smaller stream than the Huallaga, \vln\h it quite 

 resembled. Here were banks of mud and 

 sometimes covered with pebbles, as on the I I nail,: 



