52 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 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 

 lea'ving 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. It 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, I 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 I 

 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 2Oth November (1855), 

 accompanied by my assistant a young English- 

 man named Charles Nelson 1 and by six Indian 



1 ["Nelson" is here mentioned for the first time, and I can find nothing 



L O 



more about him except that he \vas English, and stayed with Spruce till he 

 left Tarapoto. ED.] 



