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CANELOS TO BANGS 159
the same high cliff 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 officinalis, which must have been brought
and amongst the under-
down from the mountains ;
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
saccharilium 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 Equisetum,
resembling E, ftuviatilc, 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,