52 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
CHAP. 
have brought away more specimens had not my 
host, a few days after my arrival, been severely 
bitten by a snake, the cure of whom prevented my 
leaving the house for several days. 
[An exceedingly interesting account of this 
whole excursion, and of the special incident above 
referred to, forms part of a lengthy article in 
the short-lived and long-extinct periodical, the 
Geographical Magazine. It is unfortunately almost 
the only portion of his Tarapoto journal that he 
wrote out in full, and I therefore insert it here.] 
After exploring the most accessible hills and 
gorges within a day's journey of Tarapoto, I 
decided to devote a month to a mountain called 
La Campana or the Bell, three days' journey away 
to westward. It was just visible from Tarapoto, 
and was described to me as abounding in ferns and 
flowers, and having on its flanks large pajonales 
or natural pastures, embosomed in virgin forest. 
As all loads must be carried on men's backs in 
that region, I had first to get together a sufficient 
number of cargueros, as they are called, for the 
transport of my baggage, which included salt beef 
and fish, as I did not calculate on finding much 
beside vegetable food on the mountain, and I 
intended to give up my whole time to plants, and 
not to waste any of it in hunting game for my 
dinner, as I had often had to do on the Rio Negro. 
I started therefore on the 20th November (1855), 
accompanied by my assistant — a young English- 
man named Charles Nelson ^ — and by six Indian 
1 [" Nelson" is here mentioned for the first time, and I can find nothing 
more about him except that he was English, and stayed with Spruce till he 
left Tarapoto.— Ed.] 
