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8o NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
fall, although no one expects the struggle
over in less than six months. [No !
Castilla
will be
proved
too strong for them.] Meantime, an innocent
traveller, who may be supposed to possess anything
worth robbing, runs the risk of being accused
as a partisan, either of Vivanco or of Castilla,
according to the colour of the revolutionary band
he falls in with ; so that even Peruvians, who have
anything to lose, put off their journeys
to an inde-
finite date. I had lately a dispute with the present
Commandant of Tarapoto a presumptuous, ignorant
young fellow wherein he " En tiempo
propounded the doctrine
de revolucion todos los bienes sou
comunes \
'
I told him the intent of such revolu-
tions was simply indiscriminate plunder.
On the last day of the carnival (Shrove Tuesday)
we had an uprising of the Indians, and there was a
struggle between them and the soldiery
in the
square. Several Indians received bayonet-wounds,
and one died of his wounds the second day.
1
A few days ago a tiger was killed within forty
paces of my house. I was sitting in the doorway
at daybreak, sipping my chocolate, when I heard a
multitude of people running down the valley and
which I at
uttering the most infernal cries, among
length distinguished the word "puma" many times
repeated. I seized my pistol and ran to the edge
of the barranco, where I saw the puma coming
straight for my door ; but he missed the narrow
track among the canes the only practicable ascent
and got to the foot of the barranco, where it rose
in a perpendicular wall 30 feet high. There he was
1
[This term seems to be applied to both the puma and the jaguars very
distinct animals. ED.]