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 I 

 have experienced at Tarapoto. In other respects 

 I am more agreeably placed than anywhere pre- 

 viously in my South American wanderings. I am 

 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 ot 

 the hills have most of them never been reachec 

 and they are clad with the same dense forest as the 

 Amazon, showing rarely scattered bald grassy 

 places (called pajonales or pastes), 

 are no tracks one must ascend by the 

 the streams, all of which, including the 

 have the peculiarity of being, as the Peruvians 

 boxed in (" encajonado ") between steep 



VOL. II 



