The Amazon, On Issuing From The Longitudinal Valley Which Bounds The Chains Of Caxamarca And Chachacocha, Breaks The Latter Chain; And The Point Where The Great River Penetrates The Mountains, Is Very Remarkable.

Entering the Amazon by the Rio Chamaya or Guancabamba, I found opposite the confluence, the picturesque mountain of Patachuana; but the rocks on both banks of the Amazon begin only between Tambillo and Tomependa (latitude 5 degrees 31 minutes, longitude 80 degrees 56 minutes).

From thence to the Pongo de Rentema, a long succession of rocks follow, of which the last is the Pongo de Tayouchouc, between the strait of Manseriche and the village of San Borja. The course of the Amazon, which is first directed north, then east, changes near Puyaya, three leagues north-east of Tomependa. Throughout the whole distance between Tambillo and San Borja, the waters force a way, more or less narrow, across the sandstones of the Cordillera of Chachapoyas. The mountains are lofty near the Embarcadero, at the confluence of the Imasa, where large trees of cinchona, which might be easily transplanted to Cayenne, or the Canaries, approach the Amazon. The rocks in the famous strait of Manseriche are scarcely 40 toises high; and further eastward the last hills rise near Xeberos, towards the mouth of the Rio Huallaga.

I have not yet noticed the extraordinary widening of the Andes near the Apolobamba. The sources of the Rio Beni being found in the spur which stretches northward beyond the confluence of that river with the Apurimac, I shall give to the whole group the name of "the spur of Beni." The following is the most certain information I have obtained respecting those countries, from persons who had long inhabited Apolobamba, the Real das Minas of Pasco, and the convent of Ocopa. Along the whole eastern chain of Titicaca, from La Paz to the knot of Huanuco (latitude 17 1/2 to 10 1/2 degrees) a very wide mountainous land is situated eastward, at the back of the declivity of the Andes. It is not a widening of the eastern chain itself, but rather of the small heights that surround the foot of the Andes like a penumbra, filling the whole space between the Beni and the Pachitca. A chain of hills bounds the eastern bank of the Beni to latitude 8 degrees; for the rivers Coanache and Magua, tributaries of the Ucayali (flowing in latitude 6 and 7 degrees) come from a mountainous tract between the Ucayali and the Javari. The existence of this tract in so eastern a longitude (probably longitude 74 degrees), is the more remarkable, as we find at four degrees of latitude further north, neither a rock nor a hill on the east of Xeberos, or the mouth of the Huallaga (longitude 77 degrees 56 minutes).

We have just seen that the spur of Beni, a sort of lateral branch, loses itself about latitude 8 degrees; the chain between the Ucayali and the Huallaga terminates at the parallel of 7 degrees, in joining, on the west of Lamas, the chain of Chachapayas, stretching between the Huallaga and the Amazon.

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