MOUTH OF THE HUALLAGA. 



179 



inhabitants. Twenty-five miles below Laguna, we arrived at tbe mouth 

 of the Huallaga. Several islands occupy the middle of it. The chan- 

 nel runs near the left bank. Near the middle of the river we had nine 

 feet ; passing towards the left bank we suddenly fell into forty -five feet. 

 The Huallaga, just above the island, is three hundred and fifty yards 

 wide; the Amazon, at the junction, five hundred. The water of both 

 rivers is very muddy and filthy, particularly that of the former, which 

 for some distance within the mouth is covered with a glutinous scum, 

 that I take to be the excrement of fish, probably that of porpoises. 



The Huallaga, from Tingo Maria, the head of canoe navigation, to 

 Chasuta, (from which point to its mouth it is navigable for a draught 

 of five feet at the lowest stage of the river,) is three hundred and 

 twenty-five miles long; costing seventy-four working hours to descend 

 it; and falling four feet and twenty-seven hundredths per mile. From 

 Chasuta to its mouth it has two hundred and eighty-five miles of 

 length, and takes sixty-eight hours of descent, falling one foot and 

 twenty-five hundredths per mile. It will be seen that these distances 

 are passed in nearly proportional times. This is to be attributed to the 

 time occupied in descending the malos pasos, for the current is more 

 rapid above than below. The difference between the times of ascent 

 and descent is, on an average, about three for one. It is proper to 

 state here that all my estimates of distance, after embarkation upon 

 the rivers, being obtained from measurement by the log-line, are in 

 geographical miles of sixty to the degree. 



