392 The Andes and the Amazons. 



whom Mr. Sisly, the chief, has sold as much as $40,000 

 worth of goods in eight months. Trade at present is very 

 dull, as the hat business has declined. 



The Department of Loreto, of which Moyobamba is the 

 capital, stretches from the eastern cordillera to Tabatinga, 

 and has a population of at least 60,000, wild tribes in- 

 cluded. The main villages west of the Huallaga are 

 Tarapoto (8000), Lamas (6000), Chasuta (1500), and 3ev6- 

 ros (1000). The main exports are straw hats, tucuyo 

 (coarse cotton cloth), salt, aguardente, tobacco, beans, cof- 

 fee, and limestone. The tucuyo is made in Tarapoto for 

 the Indians solely ; and an imitation is now manufactured 

 in England, which sells at the same price (20 cents), and is 

 preferred by the natives. It takes six days to spin one 

 pound of cotton thread, and eight days to weave one yard 

 of tucuyo. The principal salt-mines are at Callana-yacu, 

 near Chasuta, Pilluana, and Cachi-yacu, near Balsa Puerto. 

 They are situated in red sandstone, along with gypsum, 

 and supply the whole Maranon region. Aguardente is 

 made wherever the sugar-cane grows. Tarapoto exports 

 300 garrafones annually. The best tobacco comes from 

 Jevdros; and limestone bowlders from up the Huallaga 

 are shipped from Yurimaguas at $40 a ton. 



But the great business of Moyobamba and the sur- 

 rounding villages is the manufacture of " straw " hats. 

 These are made of the same material as the so-called Pan- 

 ama hats of Ecuador and New Granada. It is the unde- 

 veloped leaf of the bombonaje {^Carludovica palmata of 

 science), which is a screw-pine rather than a palm. The 

 trunk of this plant is apparently a yard high, but is really 

 wanting ; and the leaf -stalks, six feet long, spring from the 

 ground. The bark of these leaf-stalks is woven into bas- 

 kets, and the expanded leaves are used for thatching. It 

 is the leaf before it has opened that is prepared for the 



