The river rushing down the valley winds along the small breadth of level land, striking first against the precipitous cliffs on one side, and then sweeping over to the other, so that a road in the bottom of the valley would require a bridge at almost every hundred yards. It has, therefore, been necessary to excavate a path in the sides of the mountains, high above the river, which in some places has a breadth of three feet only, with a perpendicular cliff on one side, and a precipice six or seven hundred feet deep on the other; while, in others, it zigzags down amongst loose stones, where one false step would be immediate destruction. But the scenery continued to increase in beauty, and the cascades were really splendid:—
"A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below."
The river dashed noisily through the centre of the gorge, and the masses of green on either side were toned down by many flowers in large patches, bright purple Lasiandræ, orange Cassiæ, and scarlet Salviæ. I also saw an Indigofera growing in this part of the ravine.
A mile from the hut of Cahuan-chaca is the confluence of the river Huascaray; and a league lower down is the little shed or tambo of Cancallani. Here bamboos and tree-ferns first appear, and coca is cultivated in terraces which are fringed with coffee-plants, with their rich green foliage and crimson berries. I observed that the huts in the middle of these patches of coca or maize had no doors, showing the confidence of the inmates in the honesty of the numerous passers-by, who go to and fro between Sandia and the more distant coca estates.[314] I passed the estate of Chayllabamba, with terraces of coca at least fifty deep, up the sides of the mountains; and Asalay, a coffee estate, with groves of orange and chirimoya-trees, the extreme point reached by M. Hasskarl, the Dutch collector, in 1854. At the confluence of the rivers Asalay and Sandia perpendicular cliffs rise abruptly from the valley to a stupendous height on both sides, and the path winds up in a serpentine slippery staircase, to creep along the edge of the steep grassy slopes or pajonales, far above the tropical vegetation of the ravine. Winding along this path, we came to the tambo of Paccay-samana, on the grassy pajonal, the mountains rising up on the opposite side of the ravine only about sixty yards distant; yet the river, in the bottom of the gorge, was many hundreds of feet below. There were thickets with masses of bright flowers in the gullies, and glorious cascades shimmering in the sunlight on the opposite mountain-sides.
It was at this spot that we first encountered chinchona-plants. A number of young plants of C. Calisaya, var. β Josephiana, were growing by the side of the road, with their exquisite roseate flowers, and rich green leaves with crimson veins. The rock is a metamorphic slate, unfossiliferous, slightly micaceous, and ferruginous, with quartz occurring here and there: the soil a stiff brown loam. Above the tambo there was a small thicket of gaultherias, called ccarani in Quichua, and Melastomaceæ with bright purple flowers (Lasiandra fontanesiana), in a shallow gully, surrounded by the rich broad-bladed grass of the pajonal. Here there were some fine plants of the chinchona named by Dr. Weddell C. Caravayensis; and further on more plants of C. Josephiana, called ychu cascarilla by the natives. The height of this spot is 5420 feet above the sea. A tree-fern and many Trichomanes were growing with the chinchonæ. Paccay-samana is sixteen miles from Sandia.
Animal life did not appear to be very abundant. There were plenty of large doves, some ducks near the river, and a brilliant woodpecker. I also saw great numbers of large swallow-tailed butterflies, purple with light-blue spots on the upper wings; and others with white upper wings edged with jet black and rows of white spots, the lower wings orange.
Beyond Paccay-samana there were several more plants of C. Josephiana, rising out of masses of maiden-hair and Polypodia. After following the edge of the pajonal for about a mile, we descended by a precipitous zigzag path and crossed over the river Pulluma, at its confluence with the Sandia. Here the road to the Hatun-yunca or Valle Grande branches off up the mountain of Ramas-pata, while our way continued down the ravine. The scenery is here remarkably beautiful. Lofty mountains, with their bright cascades, are clothed to their summits with rich grass, while their gullies are filled with flowering trees and shrubs. Half-way up, in many directions, the stone terraces of coca rise tier above tier, fringed with ferns and begonias, and filled with the delicate coloured green coca-branches, diversified occasionally by the darker hues of the coffee. The ravine is filled with masses of purple Melastomaceæ, and the river is fringed with tree-ferns, plantains, and bamboos.
This purple Melastomacea (Lasiandra fontanesiana), called in Quichua panti-panti, in the brilliancy and abundance of its flowers, bears the same relation to this part of the Peruvian Andes as the rhododendron does to the Himalayas. The effect in masses is much the same, but the Lasiandra appears to me to be a more graceful and delicate tree, with a more beautiful flower. In this ravine we have the shrub chinchonæ on the high grassy slopes, perhaps the finest coffee in the world near the banks of the river, and a little galium by the road-side—all chinchonaceous plants.
At noon on April 26th we rested in the tambo of Ypara, in the centre of coca cultivation, and in the afternoon, crossing the river by a wooden bridge, we had to travel along the skirts of the mountains, at a considerable height, in the region of the pajonales. No gullies or large cascades cut up the face of these mountains, which were entirely exposed to the full glare of the sun, and here, though there was a profusion of purple Melastomaceæ in some of the shallow indentations, there were no chinchonæ. Towards evening we came to a lofty spur of the mountain, called Estanqui, at a great height above the ravine, whence there was a most extensive view. To the left was the valley of Sandia, with little coca-farms nestling in all the sheltered gullies; and I could just make out the boys and girls far far below, like specks, busy with the coca-leaves in the drying-yards. In front there was a distant view of the hills in the direction of San Juan del Oro, covered with virgin forest; while at our feet, and a thousand feet below us, was the confluence of the rivers Sandia, Llaypuni, and Huari-huari, which unite to form the great river Ynambari.
It was my intention, after marking down all the eligible plants of the shrubby Calisaya, to be taken up on our return, to make for the forest-covered valley of Tambopata, which is full of chinchona-trees; and I therefore left the ravine of the Sandia river at this point, and, by a rapid descent, went down from the grassy uplands to a region of tropical forest, full of palms and tree-ferns. We thus reached the banks of the Huari-huari. This river flows through a deep and very narrow ravine, lined with forest, for about 500 feet, above which rise grassy mountains to an immense height. Though only 30 feet across, and confined by dark polished rocks, the Huari-huari is very deep, and decidedly a more important stream than the Sandia, at their junction.