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.