Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

38 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
rough sketch-map
of the district which I found
among his papers, I have, I hope,
succeeded in
giving a tolerable idea of this interesting locality,
which forms the most important centre of population
in North-Eastern Peru, and which seems to be still
very little known to European, and certainly to
British scientific travellers.]
To Mr. John Teasdale (continued]
March 23, 1856.
On reaching Tarapoto about sunset, Don Ignacio
placed his well-furnished table at my disposal, and
he had already secured me an unoccupied house in
a situation exactly corresponding to my wishes.
It is away from any street, in the midst of a garden,
and only a dozen yards from the edge of a declivity
which barely allows the canes and plantains to take
root on it ; at its base the turbulent Shillicaio seeks
its course among rude masses of rock, its sparkling
waters appearing only here and there, because
hemmed in by a dense hedge of low trees and
twiners. It much reminds me of the Pyrenean
"
gaves." There is no other house nearer than
fifty paces, and this, though conducing to my more
perfect quiet, may be a disadvantage
if it should
happen that I have come among ill-disposed folk.
The garden is planted with sugar-cane, yuca-dulce,
cotton, sweet potatoes, frijoles (beans), and calabash
trees. There are also several clumps of herbs (in-
cluding at least three distinct species of Capsicum),
and two or three young trees of Yangu'a tinctoria.
Across the stream is the pueblo of Cumbasa-
a sort of suburb to Tarapoto, inhabited chiefly by