XVIII 
CANELOS TO BANGS 
159 
the same high cHff as we had seen from Barrancos 
upwards, opens out here to a considerable width, 
and here and there the river forms islands. The 
broad sandy beach, strewed in some parts with 
gravel and in others with angular blocks, bears 
marks of having been at some epoch permanently 
under water, but much of it lies now above the limit 
of the highest floods, and is in some parts covered 
by a dense but not intricate vegetation, among 
which the Laurel is the most conspicuous plant. I 
was also much struck by a Diosmeous shrub with 
sarmentose pinnate branches, and small flowers of 
which the petals persist after flowering and become 
distended by a purple-black fluid which I afterwards 
found to be the universal substitute for ink at 
Banos. On the sand grew a pink-flowered Polygala 
9 inches high, and some other herbs, but especially 
Melilotus ojficinalis, which must have been brought 
down from the mountains ; and amongst the under- 
shrubs a bushy digitate -leaved Lupin was very 
frequent. These plants were all new to me, but 
along with them, and especially in places which the 
floods still reach, grew abundance of Gynerium 
saccharinum with the same tall Gymnogramme and 
the same Composite tree as were so abundant on 
the beaches of the Mayo and Cumbasa near 
Tarapoto. They were accompanied by an Equi- 
setum, resembling E. fluviatile, and distinct from 
the tall species mentioned above. 
June 29. — The night was fortunately dry, and at 
daybreak I had our last fowl cooked and the 
remainder of the plantains distributed among the 
Indians, besides a loaf of bread to each. At sunrise 
we got off, and about the same hour rain came on, 
