ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 315 



of palms flower only once a year, in the neighborhood of the Equator 

 in the months of January and February. But how often is it im- 

 possible for travellers to be precisely at that season in places where 

 palms are principally found. In many species of palms, the flowers 

 last only so few days that one almost always arrives too late, and 

 finds the fertilization completed and the male blossoms gone. Fre- 

 quently only three or four species of palms are found in areas of 

 2000 square German geographical miles (3200 English geographical V 

 square miles). How is it possible during the short flowering season 

 to visit the different places where palms abound : the Missions on 

 the Rio Caroni, the Morichales at the mouth of the Orinoco, the 

 valley of Caura and Erevato, the banks of the Atabapo and the Rio 

 Negro, and the side of the Duida Mountain? Add to this the dif- 

 ficulty of reaching the flowers, when, in the dense forests, or on the 

 swampy river banks (as on the Temi and Tuamini), one sees them 

 hanging from stems above 60 feet high, and armed with formidable 

 spines. A traveller, when preparing to leave Europe on an expedi- 

 tion in which natural history is one of his leading objects, flatters 

 himself with the thoughts of shears or curved blades fastened to 

 long poles, with which he imagines he will be able to reach and cut 

 down whatever he desires; he dreams, too, of native boys, who, 

 with a cord fastened to their two feet, are to climb up the highest 

 trees at his bidding. But, alas ! very few of these fancies are ever 

 realized; the great height of the blossoms renders the poles useless; 

 and in the missions established on the banks of the rivers of Guiana, 

 the traveller finds himself among Indians whose poverty, stoicism, 

 and uncultivated state render them so rich, and so free from wants 

 of every kind, that neither money nor other presents that can be 

 made to them will induce them to turn three steps out of their path. 

 This insurmountable apathy is the more provoking to a European, 

 because he sees the same people climb with inconceivable agility 

 wherever their own fancies lead them; for example, when they wish \, 

 to catch a parrot, or an iguana, or a monkey, which having been 

 wounded by their arrows saves himself from falling by holding on 

 to the branches with his prehensile tail. Even at the Havannah 

 we met with a similar disappointment. We were there in the 

 month of January, and saw all the trees of the Palma Real (our 



