5i6 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
to follow the river-bank till you come to the canon 
(on the map marked " Chushpi pongo "), up the right- 
hand side of which you must climb the mountain, 
"and in this manner thou canst by no means miss 
thy way " ; which the map clearly shows, since it 
leads up to the " Encanado," which is shown by the 
other and more easy route to be the " way of the 
In 
nca. 
I submit, therefore, that the "Guide" is equally 
minute and definite in its descriptions throughout, 
that it agrees everywhere with Guzman's map, and 
that, as it is admitted to be accurate in every detail 
for more than three-fourths of the whole distance, 
there is every probability that the last portion is 
equally accurate. It will, of course, be objected that, 
if so, why did not Guzman himself, who made the 
map, also complete the exploration of the route and 
make the discovery ? That, of course, we cannot 
tell ; but many reasons may be suggested as highly 
probable. Any such exploration of a completely 
uninhabited region must be very costly, and is 
always liable to fail near the end from lack of food, 
or from the desertion of the Indian porters when 
there was doubt about the route. Guzman had 
evidently been diverted from the search by what 
seemed the superior promise of silver and gold 
mines, from which he may have hoped to obtain 
wealth enough to carry out the other expedition 
with success. This failing, he apparently returned 
home, and may have been endeavouring to obtain 
recruits and funds for a new effort when his accidental 
death occurred. 
It is to be noted that beyond the point where the 
hieroglyph puzzled all the early explorers there is a 
