33 



Journal of a Voyage up the Amazon and Rio Negko; hy Richard 



Spruce, Esq. 



{Continued from vol. v. p. 215,) 



San Carlos del Rio Negro (Venezuela), June 27, 1853. 



I received, some time ago^ your very interesting letter of January 37, 

 1852, and I should have replied to it earlier, but that I have waited to 

 complete and pack up a small collection I have made for your museum. 

 One cannot count here, as in England, on a commission being executed 

 in a given time; and some fine hammocks, ornamented at the borders 

 with feathers, which I ordered in February 1852, have only very lately 

 been completed, and I have had to go as far as Tomo to fetch them : I 

 have selected the most showy of them for your Museum, and I hope 

 it will please you. These hammocks are made in the house of a Portu- 

 guese emigrant, Senhor Antonio Jose Diaz, to whom is due the credit of 

 the design and gi'ouping of the ornaments ; but the work is executed 

 entirely by Indian girls. Senhor Diaz has obtained great repute for his 

 hammocks, which in the Barra fetch 80 milreis a piece, and in Para 

 as much as 100 milreis. 



I hope you received the last case I sent you from S. Gabriel, con- 

 taining principally articles worn by the Indians on the Rio Uaupes in 

 their feasts. As I have now spent several months among these Indians, 

 I have seen the whole of these articles in use, and I have two correc- 

 tions to make to the account I gave you of them. The Muructi^ or 

 spear, is really used in war, and the white stone is worn by all the men, 

 and not merely by the chiefs (as I had been wrongly informed). Those 

 of "royal" descent alone, are allowed to wear a stone bored length- 

 wise instead of across* 



The remaining articles I am now sending, are also from the Uaupes. 

 I met there with several other things, which I should have liked to trans- 

 mit to you, had they not been too bulky. Even among those actually 

 sent, are some of inconvenient bulk; especially four "devils," which, 

 innocent as they may look, have been the cause of not a few scourgings 

 and poisonings in their native country. I had no small difficulty in 

 carrying them off: they had to be wrapped in cloths and mats, so as 

 completely to disguise their form, and to be put on board by night, 

 covering them up so in the canoe as never to appear during the voyage. 

 I could not send these and the other matters from the Uaup<5s direct, 

 for want of boards to make a box to deposit them in. 



VOL. VI. 



T 



