148 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



too late to start. This was a most dismal day, 

 and filled us with anxious thoughts for the passage 

 of the Shuna and Topo, which rivers the Indians 

 began to predict would be swollen. They, how- 

 ever, were consoled by meeting near our ranchos 

 a band of large monkeys, several of which they 

 brought down with their blowing-canes. 



June 26. Rain again from midnight, but about 

 nine in the morning it abated so much as to allow us 

 to get under way. Road dreadful, what with mud, 

 fallen trees, and dangerous passes, of which two in 

 particular, along declivities where in places there 

 was nothing to get hold of, are not to be thought 

 of without a shudder. In three hours we reached 

 the Shuna, a larger stream than any we had pre- 

 viously passed ; it comes from the north-east in a 

 steep rocky course, and can only be forded after 

 long-continued dry weather, and even then with 

 danger. Now we found it much swollen, but as 

 the tops of the rocks on which it is customary to 

 rest the bridge were out of water, though we had 

 to wade in 3 feet of water to get to them, we 

 set to work to get materials for the bridge. These 

 were merely three long poles, not of the straightest, 

 laid from rock to rock and lashed together with 

 lianas. An Indian posted on each rock held up the 

 opposite ends of a fourth pole to a convenient 

 height to serve for a hand-rail, by means of which 

 one could cross the narrow slippery bridge with 

 some degree of security. We all got safely across 

 the Shuna, but it had again come on to rain, and 

 we bent our steps towards the Topo with mis- 

 givings that we should find it altogether impass- 

 able. On the west side of the Shuna there is a 



