RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 
diarrhoea and catarrh had reduced me pretty low 
when I left. Periodic returns of this diarrhoea, and 
ulcerated feet caused by walking in the cold waters 
of mountain streams, are the chief inconveniences I 
have experienced at Tarapoto. In other respects 
I am more agreeably placed than anywhere pre- 
viously in my South American wanderings. I am 
among magnificent scenery and an interesting 
vegetation, and there are a few pleasant people 
with whom to converse. The pampa or plain of 
Tarapoto is a sort of amphitheatre entirely sur- 
rounded by hills ; its position is in the lower angle 
of the confluence of the Mayo and Huallaga, and 
the town itself is about three leagues (ten miles) 
from the latter river. The hills are an offshoot 
from the main ridge of the Andes, and from being 
watered by the Mayo and its tributaries I must call 
them, for want of a better name, the Mayensian 
Andes. The ridges rise to some 3000 feet above 
the pampa, and some points are probably much 
higher. 
Good botanising ground is unfortunately rather 
distant. The pampa either is or has been wholly 
under cultivation, with the exception of the pre- 
cipitous banks of the rivulets, and it is a long way 
across it to the foot of the hills. The summits of 
the hills have most of them never been reached, 
and they are clad with the same dense forest as the 
Amazon, showing rarely scattered bald grassy 
places (called pajonales or pastos). Where there 
are no tracks one must ascend by the beds of 
the streams, all of which, including the Huallaga, 
have the peculiarity of being, as the Peruvians say, 
boxed in (" encajonado ") between steep walls of 
VOL. II E 
