324 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
CHAP. 
[Who can wonder that, after the receipt of such 
a letter as this, H anbury and Spruce became, for 
the remainder of their joint Hves, the most attached 
and sympathetic of friends !] 
To Mr. John Teasdale 
PiURA, Peru, /^?;^. 12, 1863. 
I embarked at Guayaquil, on the night of the ist 
of January, on the steamer that plies between that 
port and Lima, my destination being Payta, and 
thence overland to Piura. 
At 9 A.M. of the 3rd we reached Payta, and by 
noon I had got my baggage through the custom- 
house, and hung up my hamrhock in the only fonda 
in the place. But I only remained there a few 
hours to get together the mules required for the 
journey to Piura — 45 miles across the desert. It 
is usual to travel here by night, the burning heat 
of the desert by day causing great (and sometimes 
mortal) fatigue to man and beast. I was myself 
conveyed in a litter, being unable to sit on a horse 
for more than an hour at a time. We started at six 
in the evening, and at nine on the following morn- 
ing reached Piura, having rested three hours at a 
tambo erected at midway of the route, where lucerne 
and water can be had for the beasts, and coffee, 
bread, and chicha for their riders, by paying a high 
price for them. The track is still indicated, in some 
parts, by long poles stuck in the ground, as it was 
in the time of the Incas; in other parts by the 
rare Algarroba trees, which are almost the sole 
vegetation, where there is any at all. Woe to the 
