270 A NATURALIST IN THE GUIANAS 



armadillo. At last we managed to make a start. The 

 river being easy of navigation v^e made a very good 

 day's journey, passing our camping-places of March 26, 

 25, and 24. On each of the two last mentioned dates 

 I had killed a tapir. How well the men remembered 

 every detail of the two hunts ! They dwelt with regret 

 upon the remembrance of those days of feasting. When 

 we stopped for the night we ate the last piece of the 

 smoked armadillo, and as we killed nothing for the 

 day, we shall have to start without food to-morrow 

 morning. 



May 13. — Shortly after starting Ramon shot a curas- 

 sow and Freddy a penelope, so that we have something 

 to eat. Passed through the Baudales Pauji,^ and stopped 

 to cook on some open rocks below it. Have suffered 

 so much from fever lately that Maite offered to prepare 

 some Indian medicine for me. He went into the bush 

 and returned with some bunches of a purplish fruit, 

 somewhat larger than a coffee berry, but round. Between 

 the skin and the seed there is a thin pulp of slightly 

 sweetish taste. These bunches of fruit, which are the 

 seeds of a sort of slender palm covered with spines, were 

 boiled in water until it assumed the appearance of claret. 

 The liquid was then, Maite said, fit for drinking. I was 

 glad to try anything, so for the rest of the day I kept 

 the pan containing it near to me in the boat, and drank 

 nothing else. Curiously enough the fever left me at 

 night, but this may have been merely a coincidence. 

 Passed a spot where a peculiar incident had occurred on 

 the up journey : "We had decided to stop for cooking 

 our midday meal, and chose a large slab of rock adjoining 

 the steep densely wooded bank. No sooner had the boats 

 ' The Curassow Bapids. 



