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CHAP, xvii TARAPOTO TO CANELOS
ABSTRACT OF JOURNAL
(Bv THE EDITOR)
[As stated in the letter to Mr. Bentham of
March 14, Spruce arranged to make the difficult
and costly as well as dangerous journey from
Tarapoto to Banos in Ecuador in the company of
two merchants of the former place, Don Ignacio
Morey and Don Victoriano Marrieta. Each party
had its own canoe with a crew of seven Indians,
and Spruce was accompanied by a youth of twenty
years, named Hermogenes Arrebalo, probably an
Indian, as his servant. I cannot find either in the
letters or journals any further reference to his
assistant at Tarapoto, the young Englishman,
Charles Nelson, and we are left in darkness as to
where Spruce first met with him or why Nelson
did not accompany him to Ecuador.
On this journey the travellers first went over-
and the latter
land to Chasuta, occupying two days,
of this route was so full of obstructions
portion
and mud-holes, the weather being continually
wet and stormy, that in order not to lose
shoes Spruce was obliged to walk barefoot and
arrived at Chasuta both lamed and suffering from
fever.
The canoes in which they descended the river
were entirely open, in order to pass the tall
safely, and the travellers were therefore expos<
the rains, which were almost continuous,
1
passage of the cataracts was difficult, and the
narrowly escaped being s\vump-