12 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, xv 
Amazon as far as Parinari, a little above Ega. 
Thence they ascended the Yapura river, where 
they found a tribe of Indians called Yurimaguas, 
and after a time persuaded these to return with 
them up the great river and the Huallaga to the 
present site, where they have remained. They 
were induced to do so the more readily on account 
of the constant enmity of a neighbouring more 
powerful tribe. At present these Indians all use 
the Inca language, and only a few of the older 
ones have an imperfect knowledge of their original 
language. 
The church here perhaps is the most ancient, 
and is certainly the best built of any I have seen 
in Maynas. It is built of adobes in a style very 
similar to that of churches in Lima, having a very 
high-pitched roof. The floor is of tiles. The 
priest's house seems to be of the same date, and 
has been much ornamented within by cornices, etc., 
painted in various colours — the work of the last 
priest. Over one of the doors is inscribed in Latin 
the verse of Proverbs : " Give me neither poverty 
nor riches." 
[During Spruce's stay here he made a very care- 
ful pencil-drawing of the church, with its well- 
designed entrance of the simplest native materials. 
The figures on each side of the door are those of 
St. Peter and St. Paul, executed in coloured earths, 
while on the left is the belfry with its ladder — the 
campanile of South Europe reduced to its simplest 
elements. The figures of an Indian man, woman, 
and boy, with the priest going to the church, are 
characteristic ; while the background of forest, with 
its various forms of trees, completes the picture. I 
