314 EAFDAL DE CA.MEJI. 



the ' Lucanian oxen,' as they called the elephants of the 

 army of Pyrrhus. 



We embarked at Puerto de Arriba, and passed the 

 Raudal de Cameji with some difficulty. This passage is 

 reputed to be dangerous when the water is very high ; but 

 we found the surface of the river beyond the raudal as 

 smooth as glass. We passed the night in a rocky island 

 called Piedra Eaton, which is three-quarters of a league 

 long, and displays that singular aspect of rising vegetation, 

 those clusters of shrubs, scattered over a bare and rocky 

 soil, of which we have often spoken. 



On the 22nd of April we departed an hour and a half 

 before sunrise. The morning was humid but delicious ; not 

 a breath of wind was felt ; for south of Atures and May- 

 piires a perpetual calm prevails. On the banks of the Rio 

 Negro and the Cassiquiare, at the foot of Cerro Duida, and 

 at the mission of Santa Barbara, we never heard that rust- 

 ling of the leaves which has such a peculiar charm in very hot 

 climates. The windings of rivers, the shelter of mountains, 

 the thickness of the forests, and the almost continual rains, 

 at one or two degrees of latitude north of the equator, con- 

 tribute no doubt to this phenomenon, which is peculiar to 

 the missions of the Orinoco. 



In that part of the valley of the Amazon which is south 

 of the equator, but at the same distance from it, as the places 

 just mentioned, a strong wind always rises two hours after 

 mid-day. This wind blows constantly against the stream, 

 and is felt only in the bed of the river. Below San Borja it 

 is an easterly wind ; at Tomependa I found it between north 

 and north-north-east ; it is still the same breeze, the wind 

 of the rotation of the globe, but modified by slight local cir- 

 cumstances. By favour of this general breeze you may go up 

 the Amazon under sail, from Grand Para as far as Tefe, a 

 distance of seven hundred and fifty leagues. In the province 

 of Jaen de Bracamoros, at the foot of the western declivity 

 of the Cordilleras, this Atlantic breeze rises sometimes to a 

 tempest. 



It is highly probable that the great salubrity of the 

 Amazon is owing to this constant breeze. In the stagnant 

 air of the Upper Orinoco the chemical affinities act more 

 powerfully, and more deleterious miasmata are formed, 



