RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 83 
A Sketch of Spruce's Botanical Excursions 
WHILE RESIDING AT TaRAPOTO 
(By the Editor) 
[Among Spruce's MSS. are a number of loose 
sheets (about sixty or seventy) in a stiff paper cover, 
inscribed " Notes for Description of Tarapoto, in the 
Andes of Maynas or Eastern Peru." These are 
grouped under twenty - five headings, including 
topography and geology ; the inhabitants, their 
industries, customs, amusements, etc. ; the climate 
and natural history of the surrounding country ; 
languages, government, etc. etc., evidently showing 
that he intended writing a full account of the 
interesting and little known district. But the 
Notes" themselves are very fragmentary, and 
quite unfitted for any one but a person with full 
local knowledge to make any use of. Some are 
mere headings of subjects to be treated, others are 
very brief memoranda of facts or figures, while 
wherever there is any consecutive description this 
has been often utilised for some of the letters or 
extracts already given. 
Besides these loose memoranda, there is the 
small " Note-book" already referred to, which gives 
a list of all his more important botanical excursions, 
generally a mere bald statement that such a valley 
or mountain was visited on such a day, week, or 
month, with, very rarely, a note added of some 
special feature of the excursion. As a supplement 
to this, we have a few scattered sheets giving 
"notes" of some of the more interesting excursions ; 
but these, too, are quite fragmentary and very often 
