200 PROVINCE OF CAliAYAYA. Chap. XII. 



quite to the frontier of Bolivia — that frontier dividing the 

 streams flowing into the Purus, on the Peruvian side, from 

 those which feed the Beni, on the Bolivian. These affluents 

 of the Purus are divided into three distinct systems : the 

 fm-thest to the north and west, consisting of the streams 

 flowing through the great valley of Paucartambo, which unite 

 under the name of the Madre de Dios, or Amaru-mayu ; the 

 middle system, draining the ravines of Marcapata and 011a- 

 chea; and the southern and eastern, being the numerous 

 rivers in the province of Caravaya, as far as the Bolivian 

 frontier, which unite as the Ynambari. The Madre de Dios 

 and Ynambari together form the main stream of the Puinis. 



The Paucartambo system is the only one which has, as 

 yet, been described by modern explorers. In Spanish times 

 the streams which compose it were explored, and farms of 

 cacao and coca were established on their banks ; and in the 

 end of the last century an expedition was sent to explore the 

 course of the Madre de Dios, under an officer named Don 

 Tiburcio de Landa. This must have been at some time pre- 

 vious to 1780, for Landa was killed in that year in the great 

 rebellion of the Indians under Tupac Amaru.^ After the 

 declaration of Peruvian independence. General Gamarra, 

 the first Republican Prefect of Cuzco, sent an exj^edition to 

 protect the farms in the valley of Paucartambo from the 

 encroachments of the wild Chuncho Indians, and to explore 

 the Madre de Dios. It was commanded by a Dr. Sevallos, 

 now a very old man, retired to a farm in the Caravaya 

 forests, but he has, unfortunately, lost his journal. General 

 Miller made an expedition into the same region in 1835, and 

 penetrated to a gi-eater distance than any other explorer 



' Landfi sent ill a report of his expe- ' uncient muracipality of that citj-, uh 

 flitiou to tlie Corregidur of Ciizco. My | well as private collections, for tliis iii- 

 friend Dr. Don Julian Ochoa, the teresting document, at my request, hut 

 rector of the university of Cuzco, has without success, 

 ipccutlv searched the archives of tin- 



