In the fertile vale of Chinchao, famous for its coca plantations, a few proprietors of Huanuco cultivate frijoles, or beans, for the use of the coca-gatherers: rice is also grown by the humid banks of the great rivers, and maize is everywhere sown as a necessary of life.
In the Montaña, chicha is made from maize, as in other parts of Peru; but the natives here make a drink called masata, not known in more civilized parts of the country, produced by chewing the yuca or maize, &c. and then leaving it to ferment, when, according to the quantity of water added to it, the fermented juice will be found of greater or less intoxicating power.
Indigo, as we have before noticed, is of Montaña growth, as is also tobacco.
Cotton, spun and wove into cloths of various texture by the Indians, requires no artificial assistance for its luxuriant growth. Lemons, limes, oranges, citrons, and other cooling fruit, are also productions of those parts.
The pine-apple is very abundant, as well as of delicious flavour, though it grows wild: and among the articles of spontaneous growth in the Montaña contiguous to Huanuco we may enumerate cacao or cocoa, cinnamon, guaiacum, vanilla, black wax, storax, dragon’s blood, oil of Maria, gum caraña, balsam of copaiba, copal, and many other gums, balsams, and resins. Cinchona and sarsaparilla abound in great quantity.
For the following account of medicinal plants, collected during a journey down the river Huallaga, and through part of Maynas, we are indebted to the kindness of Mr. Mathews, an English botanist, formerly mentioned.
1. Machagui huasca is a bejuco or climber, the trunk and branches of which are intensely bitter. It grows at Tarapoto, and is used as a febrifuge.
2. Diabolo huasca[10] grows at Tarapoto, and is used medicinally as a purgative.
3. Uchu sanango.—This is a species of taberna-montana, which grows at Tarapoto and Moyobamba. It is very piquant; produces a sensible degree of heat, and is used as a remedy in colds and rheumatic affections of the joints.