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RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 49
diarrhoea and catarrh had reduced me pretty low
when I left. Periodic returns of this diarrhoea, and
ulcerated feet caused by walking in the cold waters
of mountain streams, are the chief inconveniences I
have experienced at Tarapoto. In other respects
I am more agreeably placed than anywhere previously
in my South American wanderings. I am
among magnificent scenery and an interesting
vegetation, and there are a few pleasant people
with whom to converse. The pampa or plain of
Tarapoto is a sort of amphitheatre entirely surrounded
by hills ; its position is in the lower angle
of the confluence of the Mayo and Huallaga, and
the town itself is about three leagues (ten miles)
from the latter river. The hills are an offshoot
from the main ridge of the Andes, and from being
watered by the Mayo and its tributaries I must call
them, for want of a better name, the Mayensian
Andes. The ridges rise to some 3000 feet above
the pampa, and some points are probably much
higher.
Good botanising ground is unfortunately rather
distant. The pampa either is or has been wholly
under cultivation, with the exception of the precipitous
banks of the rivulets, and it is a long way
across it to the foot of the hills. The summits ot
the hills have most of them never been reachec
and they are clad with the same dense forest as the
Amazon, showing rarely scattered bald grassy
places (called pajonales or pastes),
are no tracks one must ascend by the
the streams, all of which, including the
have the peculiarity of being, as the Peruvians
boxed in (" encajonado ") between steep
VOL. II