340 



SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES EEGIONS. 



most imposing of these strongholds, which is reached by crossing the Yilcanota, 

 between Maras and Urnbamba, may still be regarded as marking the frontier o£ 

 Peru, properly so called. Beyond it nothing is seen except a few obscure villages, 

 hamlets, farmsteads or Indian huts. Civilisation is advancing timidly to the 



Fig. 132. — Iquitos and the Napo Confluence. 

 Scale 1 : 750,000. 



75°l0' 



West or Greenwich 



72°W 



15 Miles. 



re-conquest of this fertile valley, which was wasted in the eighteenth century by 

 the Chuncho natives, who burnt no less than 115 plantations. 



Sarayacu, the chief riverine port of the lower Ucayali, lies on a lateral creek, 

 where some Franciscan missionaries have gathered round them Indians of 

 various tribes — Piros, Cachibos, Ore j ones — who have adopted neither Spanish nor 

 Portuguese, but Quichua as the language of general intercourse. Here the 

 traveller enters the lowlands at an altitude of not more than 544 feet above 

 the Atlantic, and steamers easily ascend from the Amazons to Sarayacu. 



