444 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



prostrated the decayed Palm on Lake Vasiva. 

 Other dead Palms might fall when the full force of 

 the squall caught them, but the crash of their fall 

 would be drowned in the general roar ol the 

 tempest, and especially in the continuous roll ot 

 the thunder. The truth seems to be that it is 

 nearly always during a storm such Palms do fall, 

 and that their prostration during a season of calm 

 is the rarest possible occurrence ; which accounts 

 for my having passed four years and a half in the 

 forest before I ever heard it, and for others having 

 lived the best part of their lives there either with- 

 out noticing it, or without caring to ascertain the 

 origin of the sound caused by it. It hardly needs 

 mention that perfectly vigorous Palm trees, and 

 trees of all kinds, may fall during a violent storm. 

 Hurricanes that open out long lanes in the forest 

 are only too frequent towards the sources of the 

 Orinoco, but are exceedingly rare on and near the 

 Amazon. 



Rarity of Curative Drugs ajnoug the Indigenes 



From what was said above, it will have been 

 seen that, although the medicine-man doses himself 

 with powerful narcotics, no drug whatever is 

 administered to the patient ; nor could I learn that 

 it was ever done by a "regular practitioner." The 

 Indians have a few household remedies, but by far 

 the greater portion of these have come into use 

 since the advent of the white man from Europe 

 and the negro from Africa. Von Martins remarks 

 nearly the same thing in the introduction to his 

 Systema Materiae Medicae vegetabilis Brasiliensis 



