After a laborious ascent through the forest we found Martel's son and his party stationed on the verge of the _pajonal_. They were evidently waiting for us, but did not attempt to impede our passage, and a display of my revolver, although it may have been very efficacious, was perfectly harmless, as the powder was quite damp. The young Martel asked the Indians in Quichua how they dared to carry the plants, and called after them that they would be seized at Sandia; but he was civil to me, and we continued our journey peaceably, though full of apprehensions at the turn affairs might take on our arrival at Sandia. We had to cross the same country as we had traversed in our journey to the Tambopata valley; and, in skirting along the verge of a ridge, near the Marun-kunka, the cargo-mule fell headlong down a precipice of twenty feet, into a dense mass of trees and underwood. We could see the poor beast's legs kicking in the air, but it was long before we could reach her, and more than two hours before a circuitous path could be cut and cleared away to extricate her. We encamped on the pajonal, and next day, after a very laborious walk of twelve hours, we reached the Ypara tambo, in the valley of Sandia, Mr. Weir having collected twenty plants of _Calisaya Josephiana_ on the way. On May 14th we continued our journey towards Sandia, and collected fifty-five more plants of _Calisaya Josephiana_ on the pajonal of Paccay-samana, chiefly seedlings. The water of the numerous cascades is very refreshing, and as beautiful in its limpid transparency as when it dashes down the rocks in dazzling streams of purest white. We were now too in the land of luscious oranges and chirimoyas. The commonest bird in the valley of Sandia is the _cuchu_, a kind of large crow, with a shrill weak caw. It has a long yellow bill, greenish-brown body and wings, rump-feathers red, and a long bright yellow tail, with a black line down the centre. The _cuchus_ walk about the fields eating the young maize, and perch upon the adjoining trees. Humming-birds are numerous, and very beautiful; I saw also a little cream-coloured hawk, and lordly eagles were soaring over the ravine, having their eyries in the inaccessible parts of the lofty cliffs. Approaching Sandia in the early morning of May 15th, I came upon many groups of Indians, with their wives and daughters, who had slept in the road, on their way to and from their coca-harvests. They were boiling their breakfasts of potatoes over little fires of dry sticks, which crackled pleasantly. Grand precipices towered up on either side of the valley, and in the bottom, where the bright river was murmuring on its way, there was a hut in a field of maize, surrounded by the drooping crimson flowers of the "love-lies-bleeding," with a girl in a bright blue woollen dress sitting at the door.