164 EIYEE-SCKNEBY. 



the shelter of a solitary tree, his slumbers are disturbed by 

 a serenade from the forest. 



"We set sail before sunrise, on the 2nd of April. The 

 morning was beautiful and cool, according to the feelings of 

 those who are accustomed to the heat of these climates. 

 The thermometer rose only to 28 in the air, but the dry 

 and white sand of the beach, notwithstanding its radiation 

 towards a cloudless sky, retained a temperature of 36. The 

 porpoises (toninas) ploughed the river in long files. The 

 shore was covered with fishing-birds. Some of these perched 

 on the floating wood as it passed down the river, and 

 surprised the fish that preferred the middle of the stream. 

 Our canoe was aground several times during the morning. 

 These shocks are sufficiently violent to split a light bark. 

 "We struck on the points of several large trees, which remain 

 for years in an oblique position, sunk in the mud. These 

 1rees descend from Sarare, at the period of great inun- 

 dations, and they so fill the bed of the river, that canoes in 

 going up find it difficult sometimes to make their way over 

 the shoals, or wherever there are eddies. We reached a 

 spot near the island of Carizales, where we saw trunks of 

 the locust-tree, of an enormous size, above the surface of the 

 water. They were covered with a species of plotus, nearly 

 resembling the anhinga, or white bellied darter. These 

 birds perch in files, like pheasants and parrakas, and the^ 

 remain for hours entirely motionless, with their beaks raised 

 toward the sky. 



Below the island of Carizales we observed a diminution of 

 the waters of the river, at which we were the more sur- 

 prised, as, after the bifurcation at la Boca de Arichuna, there 

 is no branch, no natural drain, which takes away water froi^ 

 the Apure. The loss is solely the effect of evaporation, and 

 of filtration on a sandy and wet shore. Some idea of the 

 magnitude of these effects may be formed, from the fact 

 that we found the heat of the dry sands, at different hours of 

 the day, from 36 to 52, and that of sands covered with 

 three or four inches of water 32. The beds of rivers are 

 heated as far as the depth to which the solar rays can 

 penetrate without undergoing too great an extinction in 

 their passage through the si^erincumbent strata of water. 



