HOOKER’S 
JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
AND 
KEW GARDEN MISCELLANY. 
Journal of a Botanical Voyage up the AMAZON, R10 NEGRO, and to the 
CasIQUIARE; dy RICHARD SPRUCE, Esq. 
(Continued from vol. vi. p. 111.) 
San Carlos del Rio Negro, Venezuela, March 19, 1854. 
I should like to send you a detailed account of my exploration of the 
Casiquiare and its confluents, but must content myself with the merest 
sketch. I left San Carlos on November 27, 1853, a month later than | i 
I wished, my setting forth having been delayed by causes mentioned 
in my last letter. T calculated on spending a month in the voyage 
up the Casiquiare, but after passing the mouth of Lake Vasiva, 
mosquitos began to be so abundant that my Indians became very im- 
patient of stoppages. So long as we continued in motion, compara- 
tively few mosquitos congregated in the piragoa; but when we stopped _ 
to cook or gather flowers, they were almost insupportable, and the 
cabin especially became like a beehive. You will easily understand —— 
that, however much my enthusiasm as a naturalist might conduce to — 
render me insensible to suffering and annoyance, I could not help occa- 
sionally participating the feelings of my sailors, and was not sorry to - 
get along as quickly as possible. The weather was unusually fine and 
dry for this region; hence the abundance of mosquitos. The same - 
circumstance was favourable for preserving specimens, but the trees of — 
VOL. VII. = 
