Note 462 — Chapter XCV

To the eastward of the Andes are the great forests which extend unbroken to the Atlantic. Those in the immediate neighbourhood of Cuzco are watered by the tributaries of the Purus, one of the largest and most important, though still unexplored affluents of the Amazon. These forests comprised the Anti-suyu or eastern division of the empire of the Yncas, and were inhabited by wandering savage tribes called Antis and Chunchos. The forest region was first invaded by the Ynca Rocca, but no permanent conquest was made until the reign of the Ynca Yupanqui, who received tidings of a rich province inhabited by a people called Musus (Moxos) far to the eastward. All the streams were said to unite and form a great river called the Amaru-mayu (“serpent river”), which is probably the main stream of the Purus. The Ynca made a road from the Andes to the shores of the river, through the forest-covered country now known as the montaña de Paucartambo, and was occupied for two years in making canoes sufficient to carry ten thousand men, and their provisions. He then descended the river, and, after a long and bloody war, subjugated the savage tribes of Chunchos on its banks, and collected them into a settlement called Tono. They ever afterwards paid an annual tribute of parrots, honey, and wax to the Yncas. Yupanqui then penetrated still further to the south and east, and conquered the province of Moxos.

In the early days of the conquest, the Spaniards established farms for raising coca, cacao, and sugar in the beautiful forests of Paucartambo, especially along the banks of the Tono, and Garcilasso de la Vega tells us that he inherited an estate called Abisca, in this part of the country. But as Spanish power declined, these estates began to fall into decay, the savage Chunchos encroached more and more, and now there is not a single farm remaining in this once wealthy and flourishing district. The primitive forest has again resumed its sway, and the country is in the same state as it was before it was invaded by the Ynca Yupanqui. The exploration of the course of the Purus is one of the chief desiderata in South American geography. An expedition under Don Tiburcio de Landa, governor of Paucartambo, penetrated for some distance down the course of the Tono in about 1778; in about 1824 a Dr. Sevallos was sent on a similar errand; General Miller, in 1835, penetrated to a greater distance than any other explorer before or since; Lieutenant Gibbon, U.S.N., entered the forests in 1852; and I explored part of the course of the Tono in 1853. I have been furnished with a most valuable and interesting paper on the river Purús, by Mr. Richard Spruce, the distinguished South American traveller and botanist, which I have inserted as a note at the end of this chapter.