276 PROFESSOR SMITH’S JOURNAL. 
drawings. We had stiil to double several points before 
we could arrive at the village, but our orders did not per- 
mit us to go farther. We leaped therefore on shore with 
one of the sailors, each of us carrying a rifle barrelled gun. 
I ran a few paces to the left, where the thick and dark 
forest came down close to the strand; but my progress 
being obstructed by shrubs and grass so as to make it 
impossible to proceed, I turned to the opposite side. The 
ground was sandy. The strand was in a few places some 
feet broad, but in general the vegetation left no inter- 
mediate space. I met Fitzmaurice surrounded by negroes, 
and bargaining for a turtle of immense size and a singular 
form, being no doubt a new species. On going farther 
I was so much obstructed by thickets of shrubs, that I 
was obliged to step into the water up to the middle, which 
I found to be the only way of getting at the plants, and 
of taking a view of the outside of the trees. The most 
common shrub was a Chrysobalanus, bearing a strong re- 
semblance to icaco. It was mingled with another, which, 
though without flowers and therefore hardly determinable, 
is probably a Ximenia, and the same I found at St. Jago, 
(whither I believed it to have been carried,) with a fruit 
resembling much a yellow .... . , which had a fragrant 
smell, and an acid but not disagreeable taste. The in- 
habitants higher up the river called it Gangi. The Por- 
tuguese missionaries tell long stories about its use in putrid 
fevers. Chrysobalanus has also a fruit called Mafva, that 
is blind. J saw also two large species of Arundo, three of 
Cyperus, one of which was the papyrus. It rather sur- 
