344 MISSION OF SAN BALTHASAB. 



vegetation surprised us the more, as we had till then seen 

 on the banks of the Atabapo only small trees with slender 

 trunks, which from afar resembled young cherry-trees. The 

 Indians assured that these small trees do not form a very 

 extensive group. They are checked in their growth by the 

 inundations of the river ; while the dry grounds near the 

 Atabapo, the Temi, and the Tuamini, furnish excellent 

 timber for building. These forests do not stretch indefi- 

 nitely to the east and west, toward the Cassiquiare and the 

 Gruaviare ; they are bounded by the open savannahs of Ma- 

 nuteso, and the Bio Inirida. We found it difficult in the 

 evening to stem the current, and we passed the night in a 

 wood a little above Mendaxari ; which is another granitic rock 

 traversed by a stratum of quartz. We found in it a group 

 of fine crystals of black schorl. 



On the 29th, the air was cooler. We had no zancudos, 

 but the sky was constantly clouded, and without stars. I began 

 to regret the Lower Orinoco. We still advanced but slowly 

 from the force of the current, and we stopped a great part 

 of the day to seek for plants. It was night when we arrived 

 at the mission of San Balthasar, or, as the monks style it, 

 the mission of la divina Pastor a de Balthasar de Aidbapo. 

 We were lodged with a Catalonian missionary, a lively and 

 agreeable man, who displayed in these wild countries the 

 activity that characterises his nation. He had planted a 

 garden, where the fig-tree of Europe was found in company 

 with the persea, and the lemon-tree with the mammee. The 

 village was built with that regularity which, in the north of 

 Grermany, and in protestant America, we find in the hamlets 

 of the Moravian brethren ; and the Indian plantations seemed 

 better cultivated than elsewhere. Here we saw for the first 

 time that white and fungous substance which I have made 

 known by the name of dapicho and zapis* We immediately 

 perceived that it was analogous to india-rubber ; but, as the 

 Indians made us understand by signs, that it was found 

 underground, we were inclined to think, till we arrived at 

 the mission of Javita, that the dapicho was a fossil caout- 

 chouc, though different from the elastic bitumen of Derby- 

 shire. A Poimisano Indian, seated by the fire in the hut of 

 * These two words belong to the Poimisano and Paragioi tongues. 



