Travels in Peru and India / While Superintending the Collection of Chinchona Plants and Seeds in South America, and Their Introduction into India.

by Sir Clements R. Markham

CHAPTER XII.

THE PROVINCE OF CARAVAYA.

A short Historical and Geographical Description.

The Peruvian province of Caravaya is drained by streams which form part of the system of one of the largest and least known of the tributaries of the Amazon—the river Purus.

The Purus is the only great affluent flowing into the Amazon from the south, the course of which has never yet been explored. We have detailed accounts of the Huallaga from Maw, Smyth, Poeppig, and Herndon; of the Ucayali from Smyth, Herndon, and Castelnau; and of the Madeira from Castelnau and Gibbon; but of the Purus, the largest apparently, and one which, in course of time, will probably become the most important, we have next to nothing. Its mouth, and the course of its tributaries, near the base of the Andes, are alone described.

Condamine and Smyth, in descending the Amazon, mention the great depth and volume of water at the mouth of the Purus: Herndon heard from a Brazilian trader at Barra, who had ascended its stream for some distance, that it was of great size, and without obstructions; and Haënke, in the last century, arguing from reliable geographical data which he had collected from Indians, stated his conviction that a very large river, flowing from the Andes east of Cuzco, reached the Amazon to the westward of the mouth of the Madeira.

This is the sum of our knowledge of the mouth and lower course of the Purus. The tributaries which flow into it drain the eastern slopes of the Andes, from the latitude of Cuzco quite to the frontier of Bolivia—that frontier dividing the streams flowing into the Purus, on the Peruvian side, from those which feed the Beni, on the Bolivian. These affluents of the Purus are divided into three distinct systems: the furthest to the north and west, consisting of the streams flowing through the great valley of Paucartambo, which unite under the name of the Madre de Dios, or Amaru-mayu; the middle system, draining the ravines of Marcapata and Ollachea; and the southern and eastern, being the numerous rivers in the province of Caravaya, as far as the Bolivian frontier, which unite as the Ynambari. The Madre de Dios and Ynambari together form the main stream of the Purus.

The Paucartambo system is the only one which has, as yet, been described by modern explorers. In Spanish times the streams which compose it were explored, and farms of cacao and coca were established on their banks; and in the end of the last century an expedition was sent to explore the course of the Madre de Dios, under an officer named Don Tiburcio de Landa. This must have been at some time previous to 1780, for Landa was killed in that year in the great rebellion of the Indians under Tupac Amaru.[286] After the declaration of Peruvian independence, General Gamarra, the first Republican Prefect of Cuzco, sent an expedition to protect the farms in the valley of Paucartambo from the encroachments of the wild Chuncho Indians, and to explore the Madre de Dios. It was commanded by a Dr. Sevallos, now a very old man, retired to a farm in the Caravaya forests, but he has, unfortunately, lost his journal. General Miller made an expedition into the same region in 1835, and penetrated to a greater distance than any other explorer before or since. A very brief account of his journey was published in the 'Royal Geographical Society's Journal' for 1836; but there is a much fuller and most interesting journal kept by this gallant veteran, which has never been printed. In 1852 Lieut. Gibbon, U.S.N., entered the valleys of Paucartambo; and in 1853 I explored a part of the course of its principal stream, the Tono.[287] Another expedition to explore this region, under the sanction and with the aid of the Peruvian Government, was undertaken by some native adventurers, accompanied by a few Americans, and an English artist named Prendergast, in 1856, but it completely failed. Since that time the wild Chuncho Indians have continued to attack and encroach upon the few farms which existed in these valleys at the time of my visit in 1853, and at the present moment there is not one remaining. The rich valleys of Paucartambo, once covered with flourishing cacao and coca farms, have again become one vast uncultivated tropical forest.

Following the eastern slopes of the Andes to the south and east, we next come to the streams which drain the valleys of Marcapata and Ollachea, but of these very little is known. These valleys are in the province of Quispicanchi, in the department of Cuzco; and it is said that in times past they were cultivated with advantage, and contained many coca farms. In the beginning of the last century a Jesuit found gold in a hill called Camante, in the Marcapata valley, situated between two ravines, in one of which, called Garrote, a Spanish company established gold-washings. The leading man of this company, named Goyguro, employed hundreds of Indians, and extracted gold from the Camante hill in lumps; but one day an immense landslip fell into the Vilca-mayu,[288] the chief stream of Marcapata, and all the workmen ran away, and could not be induced to return. This was in about the year 1788.