BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 613 
stinct, it selects the most remote part of the body, where 
there is least risk of being caught. I offered my bare feet to the 
attack of these bats, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing two 
of them busily engaged, one on each great toe. So gently did 
they lay hold, vibrating the air incessantly the while with 
their expanded wings, that I could not ascertain the precise 
moment ofthe bite. In a few minutes they appeared to have 
taken sufficient, and dropped off to the ground, when to my 
great astonishment, I found the wounds to be pretty large, 
and of a triangular form A. 
We quitted the post on the 5th of May, the river rising 
continually, and sweeping down with the velocity of the 
arrow. We were obliged to keep close in shore, for had we 
risked entering the current, we should have infallibly been car- 
ried down the river by its force. All hands being required 
to stem the impetuous flood, it was vain to think of botan- 
izing, and with regret was I compelled to pass many plants 
which I had never seen before. One island which lay in our 
course was full an hour long. On either side the land in- 
creased in elevation, and at a distance we discerned moun- 
tains, often enveloped in clouds of fog. As it is impracti- 
cable to navigate these rivers by night, we were always 
obliged to land and erect huts every evening, a kind of work 
in which the Bush Negroes are remarkably well skilled. Two 
days after quitting Armina we came to the first cascades, 
called Quamina-Nikko. An hour previously to reaching them, 
Our ears were stunned with the roaring of the water, echoed 
back by the dense forest, through which, with resistless fury, 
the swollen river forces its way. Laying aside the considera- 
tion that our lives were exposed to imminent hazard, it was 
a grand sight to behold, as I. did, from a rising spot, the 
spectacle of a broad river, rushing down a steep declivity 
among numberless rocks. We had to double the Fall, and 
therefore quitting the bed of the river, we struck into the 
ush, where there was almost as much to be apprehended 
from the trees, as on the water from the cascade. Before 
we had left our night-quarters, our negroes had provided 
