310 MR. SPRUCE'S BOTANICAL EXCURSION 
well supplied with game; he is also useful to me for climbing trees 
and rowing, at both of which he cannot be excelled ; but he is a ter- 
rible fellow for cashaça, like indeed most of his race. I induced one 
of the Uaupé Indians, who came with me from Uanauaca, to become 
my: fisherman: he was with me about two months, when the com- 
mandant of the fort seized him for the service of the courier to the 
Barra. Indians to row the courier’s canoe are obtained in this way :— 
a detachment of soldiers is sent by night to enter the sitios and seize 
as Many men as are wanted, who are forthwith clapped into prison, and 
there kept until the day of sailing—in irons, if they make any resist- 
ance. The voyage averages fifty days, and these poor fellows receive 
neither pay nor even food for the whole of this time. An Indian 
however never dies of hunger when his brother Indian has food, and 
these men call at the nearest sitio to replenish their supply of farinha 
from time to time. But such treatment is a great disgrace to the ES 
Government, and it is not to be wondered at that the Indians hide 
themselves in the forests when they get wit that the courier is about to 
be despatched. Within these few days I have been fortunate enough 
to engage another fisherman. It is worth my while to keep these two 
men, solely for the sake of accompanying me in my excursions, for it is 
not safe to venture among the falls with fewer than two oars. 
From St. Isabel to the mouth of the Uaupés the tops of the rocks 
were covered with Podostemeæ, but all dead, the water having long ago 
left them. When the river begins to go down,—that is, after midsum- 
mer,—they are in perfection. Es 
The serras around Saó Gabriel were a great attraction to my es- 
tablishing myself here. I began with the lowest, which rises at the 
.. back of Sad Gabriel. In streams about its base I got several Ferns, 
_ but on the serra itself nothing. Ithen undertook to ascend a serra 
~ Which appears in front, on the right bank, when one goes half a day's 
journey up the river. On Schomburgk’s map it is marked Mount 
.. Wauarimapan, but no one knows it by that name; the Indian name 
— ds Uruci-iuitéra (or the Hill of Anatto), but it is more generally known 
_ byits Portuguese name, Serra do Gama. I established myself at the 
~ nearest sitio, and set some Indians to work to cut a road through the 
.. forest—a necessary preliminary, as no one living had ascended the serra. 
_ lsueceeded in reaching the very highest point of the serra, but it cost 
me above a week; and here also the serra itself proved barren of no- 
