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shining down over all, and here and there, many miles away, 
great black mountain tops thrusting themselves up through like 
islands. A little later, as we descended and the sun sank lower, 
the clouds formed a great bank on the right of the ridge, while 
the sun, shining opposite, threw on them a shadow, quite well de- 
fined, of each individual as he passed along, and circling each 
shadow at some little distance was a nearly complete, bright ring 
of light. We reached the stone house, put up to shelter travelers 
at Tolapampa, in good season, camped over night and the next 
morning found the cloudsall gone and a heavy frost over every- 
thing. I attempted to collect a few mosses, growing abundantly 
near by, but they were so covered with ice it was scarcely possible 
to distinguish one from another and moreover they had to be cut 
out in solid chunks not at all agreeable to handle when obtained. 
Two days’ traveling down long ridges from this point takes one 
to Mapiri, at an elevation of only 1,600 ft., and there, with tropi- 
cal fruits and plants of all kinds on every side and the ther- 
mometer ranging from 85” to 95° F., day after day, one has no 
trouble in realizing that, after all, he is in the tropics. Some 
of the cultivated plants of this place are platanos (including plan- 
tains and bananas), sugar-cane, rice, cacao (the chocolate tree), 
lemons, oranges and cassiva root. On the mountain sides about 
are rubber trees, and fine coffee grows up to 3,000 or 4,000 ft. 
elevation. Just above this height, quina, the Peruvian bark tree, 
is common. 
From the town of Mapiri we went down the Mapiri and Beni 
rivers on cayapas, as two or three balsas bound together side by 
side are called. These river balsas are simply rafts, pointed and 
turned up in front, made of logs of the well-known balsa tree, 
Ochroma lagopus, and usually with a light framework eight or 
ten inches above the logs on which to sit and to place the cargo, 
The whole country passed by, while gliding down stream with 
the current on these rafts, seemed to consist of a succession of low 
mountain ranges, densely clothed to their summits with medium- 
sized timber and bushes. Occasionally a tree would stand out 
from the green foliage around, decked in a mass of yellow, 
from the multitude of its flowers, or a vine in bloom would so 
