i 4 4 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



bundles, and then hanging them up through the 

 night to 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 Piiyu (which also we crossed 

 this day, quite near the Jibaria), and the two 

 united are navigable for small canoes to the 



