Crucero is a collection of comfortless mud-houses, with a small dilapidated church in the plaza, on a very elevated swampy plain. It was intensely cold, with heavy snow-storms during the nights, and the people sat wrapped up in cloaks without fires, shivering in a dreary helpless way, and going to bed soon after sunset, as the only comfortable place. I was most kindly received by the sub-prefect, Don Pablo Pimentel, a veteran soldier, and an official who had served many years at the head of the Government in Caravaya, and in Lampa. Dr. Weddell had named a new genus of chinchonaceous plants _Pimentelia_, in honour of the worthy old sub-prefect, which had pleased him very much. I remained a few days in Crucero, before setting out for the chinchona-forests in the valleys of Sandia and Tambopata; and during that time I obtained a good deal of information from Don Pablo Pimentel, and from Señor Leefdael the Judge, respecting the province of Caravaya. Don Pablo had travelled over almost every part of it; and I also received much information at Arequipa from Don Agustin Aragon, a former sub-prefect, who has a large estate in the Caravaya forests. From these sources I am enabled to offer some account of those parts of Caravaya which I did not visit, and which will form the subject of the following chapter. Caravaya is a region of which little is known to European geographers, and, so far as I am aware, no traveller has yet given any account of it to the English public.
Puno to Paucar-colla 9 miles. " Caracoto 18 " " Juliaca 6 " " Lampa 21 " " Pucara 27 " " Azangaro 16 " " San José 18 " " Crucero 36 " --- 151 " ---
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.