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12 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP, xv
Amazon as far as Parinari, a little above Ega.
Thence they ascended the Yapura river, where
they found a tribe of Indians called Yurimaguas,
and after a time persuaded these to return with
them up the great river and the Huallaga to the
present site, where they have remained. They
were induced to do so the more readily on account
of the constant enmity of a neighbouring more
powerful tribe. At present these Indians all use
the Inca language, and only a few of the older
ones have an imperfect knowledge of their original
language.
The church here perhaps is the most ancient,
and is certainly the best built of any I have seen
in Maynas. It is built of adobes in a style very
similar to that of churches in Lima, having a veryhigh
-pitched roof. The floor is of tiles. The
priest's house seems to be of the same date, arid
has been much ornamented within by cornices, etc.,
painted
in various colours the work of the last
priest. Over one of the doors is inscribed in Latin
the verse of Proverbs :
" Give me neither poverty
nor riches."
[During Spruce's stay here he made a very careful
pencil-drawing of the church, with its well-
designed entrance of the simplest native materials.
The figures on each side of the door are those of
St. Peter and St. Paul, executed in coloured earths,
while on the left is the belfry with its ladder the
campanile of South Europe reduced to its simplest
elements. The figures of an Indian man, woman,
and boy, with the priest going to the church, are
characteristic ; while
the background of forest, with
its various forms of trees, completes the picture. I