n6 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP 



Several small streams of black water were 

 passed to-day. There was no perceptible current 

 in them, and when the river is fuller it evidently 

 enters some way up them. . . . The river winds 

 much, and reminds me of the Upper Pacimoni. This 

 morning we passed one reach due S. (i.e. where the 

 course of the river is N.), and towards evening we 

 made much easting. 



May 9. When our Indians have been an hour 

 or two on their way in the morning they proceed 

 to take their chicha. From the mass of crushed and 

 fermented yucas which they keep in a monstrous 

 jar in the prow, they take out handfuls and mix 

 with water to a drinkable consistency. The drink- 

 ing-vessels used are wide shallow basins varnished 

 and painted, whose use is general amongst the 

 Indians of Maynas. Each Indian will drink one 

 of these full twice or thrice equivalent to about 

 half a gallon. In the process they occupy at least 

 half an hour, and are as merry and noisy (but not 

 so quarrelsome) as a lot of navvies over their beer. 

 At the same time they make their toilet, which 

 consists in carefully combing out their hair with 

 cane combs of their own manufacture, then tucking 

 up the back hair with a liana passed round the 

 head, while the narrow strip of long hair at the 

 sides is allowed to hang down over the ears, and 

 that on the forehead has been cut short, as already 

 mentioned. After this comes the painting. Each 

 man carries in his bag a slender bamboo tube, a 

 little larger than one's finger, filled with anatto or 

 chica ; from this he extracts a portion with a small 



