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NOTES OF A BOTANIST
[Who can wonder that, after the receipt of such
a letter as this, H anbury and Spruce became, for
the remainder of their joint lives, the most attached
and sympathetic of friends !]
To Mr. Jo Jin Teasdale
PlURA, PERU, Jan. 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 hammock 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
unable to sit on a horse
conveyed in a litter, being
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
in some
price for them. The track is still indicated,
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