Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

CHAP. XVI RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 57
delicately outlined by Spruce and the shading added
by Mr. Young under my directions. A. R. W.]
The river Mayo a broad, shallow stream,
whose sources are in the summits of the Eastern
Cordillera runs half round the base of the hill of
Lamas, first from north to south, then eastward to
unite with the Huallaga.
The inhabitants of Lamas are a mixed race,
descended partly from Spanish colonists, partly
from the ancient Indian inhabitants, of the tribe
of Motilones or Shaven Crowns so called ; by the
first Europeans who visited them from their custom
of cutting off the hair close to the head, with the
exception of a fringe left hanging in front to the
level of the eyebrows. The custom is still common
among the Indians and half- Indians throughout
but nowadays the barber's tools are
that region ;
scissors
anciently they were sharp-edged musselshells.
In 1541, only a few years after the con-
quest of Peru, Felipe de litre (or Von Huten) set
out from Coro in Venezuela, in quest of El Dorado
and the Omaguas, and after travelling southwards
ten years, reached the province of the Motilones in
Peru, by way of a large river that flows thence to
the Amazon. That large river we now know to
be the Huallaga. Some years later (in 1560) the
famous expedition headed by Pedro de Ursua, and
numbering many hundred men, reached Lamas,
described as a small village
of Motilones, on the
banks of the river Moyobamba, where he delayed
to build vessels for navigating the Amazon,
his train was the infamous Lope de Aguirre, whose
name synonymous with
1
"traitor throughout
that region is still given to one of the malos