Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

40
NOTES OF A BOTANIST
CHAP, x
leagues from Tarapoto begin to rise the abrupt
ridges of Guayrapurima (" where the wind blows "),
which are crossed to reach Chasuta.
More to the north is a rather lower ridge whose
to it the name of Cerro-
top, bare of trees, gives
pelado (the bald hill). Over this passes the track
leading to a noted fishing stream called Tiracu,
whose sources are near those of the Aguashiyacu
in the high mountains N.E. of Tarapoto. From
this mountain come more storms than from any
other quarter. A long day of painful ascents
and descents brings fishermen to Tiracu, where
they sometimes remain a week, exposed to almost
daily rain and barely sheltered at night in a rude
rancho of palm-leaves. Some way lower down the
Tiracu are cliffs of white salt. The inhabitants of
Lamas make frequent visits there, and when I
visit the Guayrapurima mountain I never fail to
encounter one or more troops of them.
[The accompanying view of Tarapoto from the
southern entrance shows the straggling suburbs
backed on the north-east by the grand mountain of
Guayrapurima, to which Spruce made many excursions.
The conical peak on the left is probably the
same as that shown in another drawing (at p. 94)
as the singular Cerro Pelado when seen from a
different point of view, perhaps from the village of
Morales.]
The sound of the waters of the Shillicaio generally
reaches my ears in a soft murmur, often mingled
with the less musical sounds of a cane-mill on
its ; opposite margin
crushers the shouts of the men who ; goad along
the squeaking of the cane-
the poor oxen or mules in their painful round ;