Gar; (xX BUILDING A CANOE. 237 
On the road we passed a little shady inlet, at the mouth of which a 
white-haired, wrinkle-faced old man was housed in a temporary shed, 
washing the soil for gold. He was quite alone: no one knew anything 
of him in these parts except that he was a Cuyabano, or native of 
Cuyaba in the mining districts, and his little boat was moored close to 
his rude shelter. Whatever success he might have had remained a 
secret, for he went away, after a three weeks’ stay in the place without 
communicating with any one. 
We reached, in the evening, the house of the last civilised settler on 
the river, Senhor Joad Aract, a wiry, active fellow and capital hunter, 
whom I wished to make a friend of and persuade to accompany me to 
the Munduructi village and the falls of the Cupari, some forty miles 
further up the river. 
I stayed at the sitio of Joad Aracu until the 19th, and again, in 
descending, spent fourteen days at the same place. The situation was 
most favourable for collecting the natural products of the district. The 
forest was not crowded with underwood, and pathways led through it 
‘for many miles and in various directions. I could make no use here of 
our two men as hunters, so, to keep them employed, whilst José and I 
worked daily in the woods, I set them to make a montaria under Joa6 
Aract’s directions. ‘The first day a suitable tree was found for the shell 
of the boat, of the kind called Itaiiba amarello, the yellow variety of 
the stone-wood. They felled it, and shaped out of the trunk a log 
nineteen feet in length; this they dragged from the forest, with the 
help of my host’s men, over a road they had previously made with 
pieces of round wood to act as rollers. The distance was about half a 
mile, and the ropes used for drawing the heavy load were tough lianas 
cut from the surrounding trees. This part of the work occupied about 
a week ; the log had then to be hollowed out, which was done with 
strong chisels through a slit made down the whole length. The heavy 
portion of the task being then completed, nothing remained but to 
widen the opening, fit two planks for the sides, and the same number of 
semicircular boards for the ends, make the benches, and caulk the seams. 
The expanding of the log thus hollowed out is a critical operation, 
and not always successful, many a good shell being spoilt by its splitting 
or expanding irregularly. It is first reared on tressels, with the slit 
downwards, over a large fire, which is kept up for seven or eight hours, 
the process requiring unremitting attention to avoid cracks and make 
the plank bend with the proper dipat the two ends. Wooden straddlers, 
made by cleaving pieces of tough elastic wood and fixing them with 
wedges, are inserted into the opening, their compass being altered 
gradually as the work goes on, but in different degree according to the 
part of the boat operated upon. Our casca turned out a good one: it 
took a long time to cool, and was kept in shape whilst it did so by 
means of wooden cross-pieces. When the boat was finished, it was 
launched with great merriment by the men, who hoisted coloured hand- 
kerchiefs for flags, and paddled it up and down the stream to try its 
capabilities. My people had suffered as much inconvenience from the 
want of a montaria as myself, so this was a day of rejoicing to all of us. 
I was very successful at this place with regard to the objects of my 
