1*70 THE WHITE WATERS. 



the Temi, the Tuamini, and the Rio Negro In again 

 entering the Orinoco by the Cassiquiare they would have 

 to navigate three hundred and twent}^ leagues, from San 

 Carlos to Angostura. By this way they would have to 

 struggle against the currents during ten days ; the rest 

 was to be performed by going down the stream of the 

 Orinoco. It would have been blamable, they thought, 

 to have suffered themselves to be discouraged by the fear 

 of a cloudy sky, and by the mosquitos of the Cassiquiare. 

 Their Indian pilot promised them the sun, and " those 

 great stars that eat the clouds," as soon as they should 

 have left the black waters of the Guaviare. They there- 

 fore carried out their first project of returning to San 

 Fernando de Atabapo by the Cassiquiare; and, fortu- 

 nately for their researches, the prediction of the Indian 

 was verified. The white waters brought them by degrees 

 a more serene sky, stars, mosquitos, and crocodiles. 



They reached San Carlos again, and Humboldt passed 

 a part of the night in the open air, waiting vainly for 

 stars. The air was misty, notwithstanding the white 

 waters, which were to lead them beneath an ever-starry 

 sky. 



They passed three nights at San Carlos, Humboldt 

 watching during the greater part of them, in the hope of 

 seizing the moment of the passage of some star over the 

 meridian. That he might have nothing to reproach him- 

 self with, he kept his instruments always ready for an 

 observation. 



On the banks of the Cassiquiare he. purchased from 

 the Indians two fine large birds, a toucan, and a species 

 of macaw, seventeen inches long, having the whole 

 body of a purple colour. He had already in his canoe 



