Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

CHAP. XVI RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 43
the grunting of
pigs, which chew the crushed
canes as they are thrown out ; and very often the
laughter and playful screams of boys and girls
bathing in the stream. But when heavy
rain falls
on the hills to the northward, the swollen stream
comes rushing down with a roar which drowns
every other sound, bearing along with it logs and
trunks of trees, and sometimes tearing loose from
its banks a large mass of rock which falls with a
thundering
crash. At such times all communica-
tion is suspended between the town and the
village. The poor people who are returning from
their farms on the opposite side, with their load
of plantains or other vegetables, have then to wait
perhaps a couple of hours shivering on the bank
ere they can cross. Their natural apathy prevents
the people from obviating this inconvenience bythrowing
a bridge across the narrow stream, which
would be easily done, as the channel is in many
places scarcely ten yards across, and the banks are
so high that the adjacent ground is never inundated
by the highest Hoods, which always subside a fewhours
after the rain ceases. A bridge was indeed
commenced in 1856, but the foundations were
ill-laid that the first flood swept them away.
the rains
At some seasons, especially during
scarcely any colour but green,
of various
can be discerned in the landscape, save that 'in the
morning the lower part of the course of the
and Cumbasa are marked by a line of hovering
mist, and that a tall column of grey
be seen rising in the forest from some ne\
clearing; but a few sunny days after rain <
the forest here and then- with the (lowers