RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 73 
ammonia — or rather to my abuse of it — and to 
the subsequent chill from exposure to wet ; for 
had I not ibeen impatient of the pain of the sting, 
I have little doubt it might soon have subsided of 
itself. 
[A few more passages from the letter to Mr. 
Bentham, illustrating the difficulties a collector has 
to encounter, are now given. It is probable that 
the same condition of things still exists there.] 
Tarapoto, Dec. 1855. 
I have been most put about here for materials 
of which to make boxes, as such things as boards 
are not to be had. The only use the inhabitants 
have for a board is to make a door, and this is 
either cut out of some old canoe or they cut down 
a tree in the forest, roughly carve out a door from 
it on the spot, and bring it home on their backs. 
For other purposes, such as benches, shelves, 
bedsteads, etc., the never-failing Cana brava [Gyjte- 
rium saccharoides) is all they require. After trying 
in vain to buy boards, I went to two ports on the 
Huallaga and in each of them bought an old canoe. 
I had then to go again with a carpenter to cut 
them up into pieces of convenient size, which had 
to be conveyed to Tarapoto on Indians' backs, and 
afterwards laboriously adzed down into something 
like boards. All this, with the trouble of looking 
up Indians, the making of two boxes and prepar- 
ing boards for other two, left me little leisure for 
anything else for the space of near a month. 
I propose extending my stay at Tarapoto to a 
little over the twelvemonth — say to somewhere in 
