66 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
CHAP. 
warmly received by the worthy Padre, who had 
heard of what he considered the wonderful cure of 
the snake-bite ; but when I told him all the circum- 
stances, and especially that Chumbi had been bitten 
when on 7ny errand, he looked very grave. "If 
Chumbi had died," said he, I should never have 
seen you more. 'Chumbi's relatives would have 
poisoned you. I in vain preach to them," he con- 
tinued, " of what the Bible tells us about the 
entrance of sin and death into the world, and 
appeal to their reason to note how the body wears 
out with age, and how it is constantly exposed to 
accidents which may suddenly bring its machinery 
to a dead stop ; they still in their inmost hearts 
believe — as their pagan ancestors believed — that 
death is in every case the work of an enemy." 
Chumbi himself was very grateful to me, and 
during the remainder of my stay at Tarapoto often 
sent me little presents, especially of cakes of 
chancaca or uncrystallised sugar, the produce of 
his chacra ; and he told to all the passers-by the 
story of his narrow escape from death by a snake- 
bite, through the skill (as he was pleased to say) of 
an Englishman. 
Venomous snakes become rarer in the Equatorial 
Andes when we ascend beyond 3000 feet, and at 
about 6000 feet disappear altogether — at least I 
never saw or heard of one above that height. The 
natives believe the snakes of the sierra to be just 
as venomous as those of the plains, and that it is 
the cold that renders them bobas (stupid) — of 
course a mistaken notion, like most other popular 
beliefs. 
The superstition that it is unlucky for a woman 
