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54 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.XV,
The town occupies a series of terraces, from 200
except in what
to 300 feet below the hill-top ; but
is called the plaza, where the church, convent,
and government house the last appropriated to
the lodging of strangers occupy three sides of a
square, scarcely anywhere
is there the semblance
of a street or square. The nature of the ground
is partly the cause of this, for the rains have
worn narrow zigzag ravines, called zanjas, 40 feet
or more deep, and with perpendicular sides, that
radiate from the convex summit in all directions ;
so that two houses only a few paces apart may
be separated by an impassable gulf, and even in
the daytime it is necessary to take heed to one's
steps, while by night the town is actually impassable
for a stranger. It should be added that a
bridge, even in the shape of a is simple plank, a
luxury unknown in the land of the Motilones.
The scanty clothing worn for decency's sake in
that warm region is soon dried up by the sun and
wind after wading through one of the streams,
even up to the neck. The zanjas widen down-
wards, and from their sandy bed distils a deliciously
cool and clear water, which is made to collect here
and there in little wells, covered in with a fiat
stone, and is used by the inhabitants for all
domestic purposes.
[The drawing here reproduced was made by
Spruce during his two days' stay here (as stated on
p. 60).
It shows the plaza from a slight elevation,
the irregular houses around it, the two- towered
church and convent, with a detached bell-tower at
some distance, as at Yurimaguas ;
the whole backed
by the forest-clad Tarapoto mountains. This was