CANELOS TO BANGS 159 



the same high cliff as we had seen from Barrancos 

 upwards, opens out here to a considerable width, 

 and here and there the river forms islands. The 

 broad sandy beach, strewed in some parts with 

 gravel and in others with angular blocks, bears 

 marks of having been at some epoch permanently 

 under water, but much of it lies now above the limit 

 of the highest floods, and is in some parts covered 

 by a dense but not intricate vegetation, among 

 which the Laurel is the most conspicuous plant. I 

 was also much struck by a Diosmeous shrub with 

 sarmentose pinnate branches, and small flowers of 

 which the petals persist after flowering and become 

 distended by a purple-black fluid which I afterwards 

 found to be the universal substitute for ink at 

 Banos. On the sand grew a pink-flowered Polygala 

 9 inches high, and some other herbs, but especially 

 Melilotus officinalis, which must have been brought 

 down from the mountains ; and amongst the under- 

 shrubs a bushy digitate -leaved Lupin was very 

 frequent. These plants were all new to me, but 

 along with them, and especially in places which the 

 floods still reach, grew abundance of Gynerium 

 sac char ilium with the same tall Gymnogramme and 

 the same Composite tree as were so abundant on 

 the beaches of the Mayo and Cumbasa near 

 Tarapoto. They were accompanied by an Equi- 

 setum, resembling E, ftuviatilc, and distinct from 

 the tall species mentioned above. 



June 29. --The night was fortunately dry, and at 

 daybreak I had our last fowl cooked and the 

 remainder of the plantains distributed among the 

 Indians, besides a loaf of bread to each. At sunrise 

 we got off, and about the same hour rain came on, 



