384 The Andes and the Amazons. 



From this point to Borja, the head of navigation on the 

 main Maranon, where the river dashes through a deep 

 gorge in the limestone mountain, is about 400 miles. But 

 trade seldom calls a steamer beyond the mouth of the 

 Huallaga. The " Morona " turned up this tributary, and 

 left me on the clay-bank of Yurimaguas, v^^here I leave 

 my reader while I make a foot-tramp through the forest 

 and the ascent of the Andes. Yurimaguas is a collection 

 of a hundred stockades of poles with thatched roofs, stand- 

 ing on a high bluff of pebbly brown clay. It is a busy 

 spot — once a month, when the steamer calls for hats, salt, 

 sarsaparilla, rum, cotton, and fish ; then the total popula- 

 tion assembles on the bank. But Yurimaguas is the em- 

 porium of a region richer, by far, in natural wealth than 

 the Empire State — the entire eastern slope of Northern 

 Peru. 



