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.