Great care was necessary in passing between the islands of Cabello-Cocha, Tarapote, and Cacao.

Many stoppages had to be made, and occasionally they were obliged to pole off the jangada, which now and then threatened to run aground.
Every one assisted in the work, and it was under these difficult circumstances that, on the evening of the 20th of June, they found themselves at Nuestra-Senora-di-Loreto.
Loreto is the last Peruvian town situated on the left bank of the river before arriving at the Brazilian frontier.

It is only a little village, composed of about twenty houses, grouped on a slightly undulating bank, formed of ocherous earth and clay.
It was in 1770 that this mission was founded by the Jesuit missionaries.
The Ticuma Indians, who inhabit the territories on the north of the river, are natives with ruddy skins, bushy hair, and striped designs on their faces, making them look like the lacquer on a Chinese table.

Both men and women are simply clothed, with cotton bands bound round their thighs and stomachs.

They are now not more than two hundred in number, and on the banks of the Atacoari are found the last traces of a nation which was formerly so powerful under its famous chiefs.
At Loreto there also live a few Peruvian soldiers and two or three Portuguese merchants, trading in cotton stuffs, salt fish, and sarsaparilla.
Benito went ashore, to buy, if possible, a few bales of this smilax, which is always so much in demand in the markets of the Amazon.