Chap. II. BUILD A CANOE. 117 



I stayed at the sitio of Joao Aracu. until the 19th, 

 and again, in descending, spent fourteen days at the same 

 place. The situation was most favourable for collecting 

 the natural products of the district. The forest was not 

 crowded with underwood, and pathways led through it 

 for many miles and in various directions. I could make 

 no use here of our two men as hunters, so, to keep them 

 employed whilst Jose and I worked daily in the woods, 

 I set them to make a montaria under Joao Aracu' s 

 directions. The first day a suitable tree was found for 

 the shell of the boat, of the kind called Itauba amarello, 

 the yellow variety of the stone-wood. They felled it, and 

 shaped out of the trunk a log nineteen feet in length : 

 this they dragged from the forest, with the help of my 

 host's men, over a road they had previously made with 

 pieces of round wood to act as rollers. The distance 

 was about half a mile, and the ropes used for drawing 

 the heavy load were tough lianas cut from the sur- 

 rounding trees. This part of the work occupied about 

 a week : the log had then to be hollowed out, which 

 was done with strong chisels through a slit made down 

 the whole length. The heavy portion of the task being 

 then completed, nothing remained but to widen the 

 opening, fit two planks for the sides and the same 

 number of semicircular boards for the ends, make the 

 benches, and caulk the seams. 



The expanding of the log thus hollowed out is a criti- 

 cal operation, and not always successful, many a good 

 shell being spoilt by its splitting or expanding irregu- 

 larly. It is first reared on tressels, with the slit down- 

 wards, over a large fire, which is kept up for seven or 



