54 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. XVI 
The town occupies a series of terraces, from 200 
to 300 feet below the hill-top ; but except in what 
is called the plaza, where the church, convent, 
and government house — the last appropriated to 
the lodging of strangers — occupy three sides of a 
square, scarcely anywhere is there the semblance 
of a street or square. The nature of the ground 
is partly the cause of this, for the rains have 
worn narrow zigzag ravines, called zanjas, 40 feet 
or more deep, and with perpendicular sides, that 
radiate from the convex summit in all directions ; 
so that two houses only a few paces apart may 
be separated by an impassable gulf, and even in 
the daytime it is necessary to take heed to one's 
steps, while by night the town is actually impass- 
able for a stranger. It should be added that a 
bridge, even in the shape of a simple plank, is a 
luxury unknown in the land of the Motilones. 
The scanty clothing worn for decency's sake in 
that warm region is soon dried up by the sun and 
wind after wading through one of the streams, 
even up to the neck. The zanjas widen down- 
wards, and from their sandy bed distils a deliciously 
cool and clear water, which is made to collect here 
and there in little wells, covered in with a flat 
stone, and is used by the inhabitants for all 
domestic purposes. 
[The drawing here reproduced was made by 
Spruce during his two days' stay here (as stated on 
p. 60). It shows the plaza from a slight elevation, 
the irregular houses around it, the two -towered 
church and convent, with a detached bell-tower at 
some distance, as at Yurimaguas ; the whole backed 
by the forest-clad Tarapoto mountains. This was 
