RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 47 
mixed (and I must say very degenerate) race, who 
have nothing about them of the European but 
a whitish skin ; their ideas, modes of Hfe, and 
language being still entirely Indian. 
Tarapoto is regularly built, and covers a good 
deal of ground, as the houses mostly stand in 
gardens. . . . They are all of a single story with 
thick walls of adobes and palm-thatch roofs. 
The climate is much drier than that of the 
Amazon, but this depends entirely on the peculiar 
position of the town, for while heavy rains are 
frequent on the hills, they are very rare at Tara- 
poto, and we see and hear almost every day violent 
thunderstorms skirting the pampa, but only occa- 
sionally giving us a slight taste. Fogs, however, 
are frequent in the mornings, and no doubt make 
up for the deficiency of the rains. 
As to temperature, I have once had the pleasure 
of seeing the thermometer at Tarapoto down to 61° 
at daybreak. The sensation of cold was so great 
that had I been in England I should have looked 
to see the mist deposited on the trees in the shape 
of hoar-frost. More commonly at that time of day 
the thermometer marks from 72° to 75°. At two 
in the afternoon it gets up to 84^ to 87°, and in my 
house to 95° to 98' — on one occasion to loo^ 
On the hills it is much cooler, and even here we 
have generally a strong northerly breeze from 
10 A.M. to sunset, which tempers the heat. In 
the months of November and December, I spent 
three weeks on the Cerro de Campana, at three 
days' journey to the west of this, and two days 
from Moyobamba. Here I got nearly 4000 feet 
higher than the Pampa of Tarapoto, and the cold 
