January.—Incessant rain, with damp heat day and night. Sun never seen. Fruits ripen.
February.—Incessant rain and very hot. Sun never seen. A coca harvest.
March.—Less rain, hot days and nights, little sun. Bananas yield most during the rainy season.
April.—Less rain; hot, humid nights, and little sun in the daytime.
May.—A showery month, but little heavy rain. This is the month for planting coca and sugar-cane, and what is called the michca, or small sowing of maize, as well as yucas, aracachas, camotes, and other edible roots. Coffee-harvest begins.
June.—A dry hot month. Much sun and little rain. Coca-harvest early in the month. Oranges and paccays ripen. Cool nights, but a fierce heat during the day.
July.—The hottest and driest month, but with cool nights. Very few showers. Time for sowing gourds, pumpkins, and water-melons.
August.—Generally dry. Trees begin to bud. A month for planting.
September.—Rains begin. Time for blossoming of many trees. Coca-harvest.
October.—Rains increasing. Maize-harvest, and time for the "sembra grande," or great sowing of maize.
November.—Heavy rains. A coca-harvest.
December.—Heavy rains. Pumpkins ripen.
The inhabitants of the valley of Tambopata consist of Gironda, his two little boys, one Victorio Jovi, Villalba, and the cascarillero named Martinez. Another cascarillero, named Ximenes, has lately died. They live with their families at a place called Huaccay-churu, about half a mile up the Llami-llami river, where there are a few huts, and a small clearing. Gironda's little farm is the last inhabited spot; beyond is the illimitable virgin forest, stretching away for hundreds, nay thousands of miles, to the shores of the Atlantic. This forest has not been traversed since 1847, when the bark trade ceased, and it is quite closed up.
By the desertion of one of my Indians on the day we left Sandia, the other three and Pablo Sevallos were barely able to carry the provisions and other necessaries, so that, on reaching Gironda's clearing, which is called Lenco-huayccu,[329] I found that I had only sufficient food to last for six days. Gironda himself was little better off, and was living on roots, and chuñus or potatoes preserved by being frozen in the loftiest parts of the Andes. I determined, however, to penetrate into the forest, in search of chinchona-plants, for six days, and to trust to Gironda's kindness to supply me with provisions to enable me to return to Sandia.
I was so fortunate as to secure the services of Mariano Martinez, an experienced cascarillero, who had acted as guide to Dr. Weddell, on the occasion of his visit to the valley of Tambopata in 1846. He was thoroughly acquainted with all the different species of chinchona-trees, and, reared from a child in these forest solitudes, he was a most excellent and expert woodman, intelligent, sober, active, and obliging.
On May 1st we prepared to enter the dense entangled forest, where no European had been before, and no human being for upwards of thirteen years, except the Collahuayas and incense-collectors. Our party consisted of seven: the three Indians, Weir, Pablo, Martinez, and myself. The Indians, each with their chuspas of coca, and a chumpi or belt round their waists, carried the ccepis or bundles of provisions; Pablo bore the tent; and we were all armed with machetes, or wood-knives, to clear the way. My people were all dressed in coarse cotton cloth, and I wore a leathern hat, red woollen shirt, fustian trousers, and the indispensable polccos, or shoes made of bayeta or felt, always used in these forests. We were all mustered and ready to start on the verge of Gironda's clearing, which is surrounded by tall forest trees, with the river rushing noisily past, and the opposite mountains covered to their summits with fine timber, when half a dozen pale-faced men emerged from the tangled thicket in our front. They looked wan and cadaverous like men risen from the dead, and worn out by long watching and fatigue. They turned out to be Collahuayas, collectors of drugs and incense, who penetrate far into the forests to obtain their wares, and come forth, as we then saw them, looking pale and haggard.
These Collahuayas, called also Chirihuanos on the coast of Peru, Yungeños, and Charasanis, are a very peculiar race. They come from three villages in the forest-covered ravines of the Bolivian province of Larecaja, called Charasani, Consata, and Quirbe; and their knowledge of the virtues of herbs has been handed down from father to son from time immemorial. They traverse the forests of Bolivia and Caravaya collecting their drugs; and then set out as professors of the healing art, to exercise their calling in all parts of America, frequently being two and three years away from their homes, on these excursions. With their wallets of drugs on their backs, and dressed in black breeches, a red poncho, and broad-brimmed hat, they walk in a direct line from village to village, exercising their calling, and penetrating as far as Quito and Bogota in one direction, and to the extreme limits of the Argentine Republic in the other. Their ancestors did the same in the time of the Incas, and Garcilasso de la Vega gives some account of the medical treatment adopted by the ancient Peruvian physicians. They were in the habit of letting blood and purging, they administered the powdered leaf of the sayri (tobacco) for headaches, mulli (Schinus molle) for wounds, and a host of other simple herbs for other ailments. Both Garcilasso[330] and Acosta[331] mention their knowledge of the virtues of sarsaparilla, yet it is remarkable that the Collahuayas should never have discovered the febrifugal qualities of chinchona bark.
We saluted these hard-working physicians, and then entered the forest from which they had just emerged. A short walk brought us to the river Challuma,[332] a tributary of the Tambopata, which we waded across. Martinez told me that this was the extreme point reached by Dr. Weddell, and that he came here to see a tree of C. micrantha growing.
Beyond the Challuma there is no road at all, and the really serious forest work began; two hornets stinging me on the temple and back of the neck, as I forced my way through the first bush. Martinez went in front as pioneer, clearing away obstructions with his machete, and the rest of our little party followed. Between lordly trees of great height the ground was entirely choked up with creepers, fallen masses of tangled bamboo, and long tendrils which twisted round our ankles, and tripped us up at every step. Ten miles on open ground is only equal to one over such country as this. In many places we had to scramble through the same dense forest, along the verge of giddy precipices which overhung the river. Often we came upon tracks where a giant of the forest had fallen, bearing all before it, and finally dashing over the cliff into the river below. The Tambopata was boiling and surging over a rocky bed, at times far below us, while at others we took advantage of a short strip of rocky beach to escape the forest. Thus we struggled on until sunset, when we reached a stony beach, and encamped for the night. This had been a most fatiguing march. In some places we were a quarter of an hour forcing and cutting our way through a space of twenty yards, and the halt was most welcome. It was a wild scene as the darkness closed round: the camp-fire and Indians on the beach, the dense gloomy forest close behind, the boiling river in front, and forest-clad mountains rising up on the other side.
From this, the first day of our forest-life, until the 14th of May, being just a fortnight, we were actively engaged in the examination of the chinchona region, and in the collection of plants. As the best way of recording the results of our investigations, I now propose to give a detailed account of our proceedings from day to day; and, in the following chapter, to recapitulate our observations with special reference to the climate, soil, and general habit of those species of chinchonæ which came immediately under our notice. I owe much to the intelligent assistance of our guide Martinez, who, to great experience in woodcraft, added a lynx's eye for a Calisaya-plant; and it required no little quickness and penetration to distinguish these treasures, amidst the close entanglement of the undergrowth, in the dense forests. Martinez spoke Spanish very imperfectly, and, without a knowledge of Quichua, I should have found much difficulty in conversing with him; but he had a most complete and thorough knowledge of all forest-lore, and was acquainted with the native name of almost every plant, and with the uses to which they were or might be applied.