PICHIS RIVER.
The Pichis is a branch of the Pachitea river. The Cashibos and Campas Indians inhabiting its banks are warlike tribes and fiercely oppose all attempts to examine their country. Nothing was known of the river, above its mouth, until it was explored and surveyed, in 1873, by the Peruvian Hydrographical Commission of the Amazon, accompanied by a military escort. It was necessary for the Commission to bestow names on notable places as they proceeded to discover them, and these names were afterwards used in making the chart of the river.
MOUTH OF THE PICHIS.
Latitude, 9° 54' 9" south; longitude, 74° 58' 45" west of Greenwich; magnetic variation, 7° 34' 4" east; elevation above sea-level, 618 feet; distance from the Atlantic, 3082 miles; current, 2-1/2 miles per hour.
ROCHELLE ISLA.
Latitude, 9° 57' 11" south; longitude, 75° 2' west of Greenwich; magnetic variation, 8° 35' 36" east; elevation above the sea-level, 630 feet; distance from the Atlantic, 3100 miles; current, 2-1/2 miles per hour.
Up to Rochelle Isla, named after the senior member of the Peruvian Hydrographical Commission, navigation is clear and unobstructed for any steamer that can ascend the Pachitea; that is, for any steamer not drawing more than nine feet of water. Beyond this island the navigation of the river becomes much more difficult, though not altogether impracticable. The River Trinidad, so named on account of its having been discovered on Trinity Sunday, empties itself into the Pichis ten miles above Rochelle Isla; it is a fine, large river, flowing from the eastward, with deep water and a current of 3 miles per hour at its mouth.
TEMPESTAD PLAYA.
Latitude, 10° 5' 6" south; longitude, 74° 55' 45" west of Greenwich; magnetic variation, 7° 46' east; distance from the Atlantic, 3123 miles. Tempestad Playa received its name in consequence of a violent tempest which was there encountered by the namers.