408 



BAMBOO HOUSES. 



had prepared, for Don Luis Jordan. With the 

 post were eight or ten peons, two of whom I 

 hired to bring on the cargos I had left behind. 

 At five, arrived at La Pu^nte, a small cottage, 

 close to a bamboo-bridge, decayed and dan- 

 gerous. It crosses a rapid stream, which 

 there joins a mountain-torrent, and they toge- 

 ther form a tolerably broad, but unnavigable 

 river which continues its course to Las Juntas, 

 where it unites with another mountain-river 

 and becoming navigable, is called the Tamina. 



I found the inhabitants of La Puente em- 

 ployed in preparing bamboos to make a new 

 house, one of their old ones having fallen 

 down. I learnt that it had only lasted five 

 years, and that the reason of its fall was, that 

 the part inserted in the ground had become 

 rotten. I immediately advised them, in the 

 building of their new house, to char the end 

 they intended to place in the ground, which 

 they promised to do; and will thus enable 

 their houses to last twenty, instead of five years. 

 Slept uncomfortably : weather very warm. 



Jan. 31st. My servant unwell ; peons com- 

 plaining, and trying very much to loiter ; my 

 sillero again complained of rheumatism in his 



