90 A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS 



CHAPTEK VI 



Departure from Ciudad-Bolivar, December 6, 1900 — The chubdsco — The 

 Gates of Hell — Alligator hunting — Trade in alligator skins — On board 

 the ' Caura ' — Fish-spearing by torchlight — Mapire. 



The few days spent at Ciudad-Bolivar were employed 

 in purchasing provisions and such other articles as were 

 necessary for the trip, and although one would expect to 

 be able to obtain almost anything in so important a town, 

 I met with the greatest difficulties in my attempts to fit 

 out my expedition properly. Salt was exceedingly scarce, 

 so that I was unable to procure more than three bags 

 of 150 pounds each, and for these three bags I had to 

 pay something like forty pesos, or nearly seven pounds 

 sterling. There was a dearth of peas and rice, but I 

 expected to get all I wanted of these articles on the 

 Caura itself. The dried beef offered me by those engaged 

 in the salting and preparing of meat was old and unfit for 

 food. It is indicative of the backwardness of Venezuela, 

 when compared with another Spanish-American republic, 

 Argentina, that while in the latter country a very good 

 dried beef is prepared which is exported in large quantities, 

 in the former a semi-putrid abomination called came 

 salada is the only form of preserved beef obtainable. 

 The scarcity of salt and its high price are no doubt 

 responsible to a certain extent for the imperfections of 

 the preparation known as came salada, but there is 

 another important point to which no attention is paid, 

 and that is the pressing of the beef so as to get rid of the 



