150 OX THE RIVER CASSIQflAKE. 



incident merely to show the artifices of those large 

 cats with spreckled coats." 



Solitude the most profound, foliage the most 

 luxuriant, and mosquitoes the most envenomed, 

 were the three most striking characteristics of the 

 river Cassiquiare. " Not five boats pass annually 

 by its waters," says our traveller ; " and since we 

 left Maypures that is, for a whole month we had 

 not met one living soul on the rivers as we ascended, 

 except in the immediate neighbourhood of the 

 missions. To the south of Lake Duractumuni we 

 slept in a forest of palm-trees. It rained violently, 

 but the pothoses, arums, and lianas furnished so thick 

 a natural trellis, that we were sheltered as under a 

 vault of foliage. The Indians, whose hammocks 

 were placed on the edge of the river, interwove the 

 heliconias and other plants so as to form a kind of 

 roof over them. Our fires lighted up, to the height 

 of fifty or sixty feet; the palm-trees, the lianas, 

 loaded with flowers ; and the columns of white 

 smoke, ascending in a straight line towards the 

 sky the whole exhibited a magnificent spectacle; 

 but, to enjoy it with tranquillity, we should have 

 breathed an air free from insects. The mosquitoes, 

 which tormented us during the day, accumulated 

 towards evening beneath the roof of palm-leaves. 

 Our hands and faces had never before been more 

 swelled ; Father Zca, who until then boasted of 



