350 EXTBAOBDLNABY BEJTCOMRE. 



dated to tlie extent of more tKan half a square league. To 

 avoid the sinuosities of the river and shorten the passage, 

 the navigation is here performed in a very extraordinary 

 manner. The Indians made us leave the bed of the river ; 

 and we proceeded southward across the forest, through 

 paths (sendas), that is, through open channels of four or 

 five feet broad. The depth of the water seldom exceeds 

 half a fathom. These sendas are formed in the inundated 

 forest like paths on dry ground. The Indians, in going 

 from one mission to another, pass with their boats as much 

 as possible by the same way ; but the communications not 

 being frequent, the force of vegetation sometimes produces 

 unexpected obstacles. An Indian, furnished with a machete 

 (a great knife, the blade of which is fourteen inches long), 

 stood at the head of our boat, employed continually in 

 chopping off" the branches that crossed each other from the 

 two sides of the channel. In the thickest part of the 

 forest we were astonished by an extraordinary noise. On 

 beating the bushes, a shoal of toninas (fresh-water dolphins) 

 four feet long, surrounded our boat. These animals had 

 concealed themselves beneath the branches of afromager, 

 or Bombax ceiba. They fled across the forest, throwing 

 out those spouts of compressed air and water which have 

 given them in every language the name of ' blowers.' How 

 singular was this spectacle in an inland spot, three or four 

 hundred leagues from the mouths of the Orinoco and the 

 Ajnazon ! I am aware that the pleuronectes (dabs) of the 

 Atlantic go up the Loire as far as Orleans; but I am, 

 nevertheless, of opinion that the dolphins of the Temi, 

 like those of the Ganges, and like the skate (raia) of the 

 Orinoco, are of a species essentially different from the 

 dolphins and skates of the ocean. In the immense rivers 

 of South America, and the great lakes of North America, 

 nature seems to repeat several pelagic forms. The Nile 

 has no porpoises:* those of the sea go up the Delta no 

 farther than Biana and Metonbis towards Selamoun. 



At five in the evening we regained with some difficulty 



* Those dolphins that enter the mouth of the Nile, did not escape the 

 observation of the ancients. In a bust in syenite, preserved in the 

 museum at Paris, the sculptor has represented them half concealed in Ih? 

 u adulatory beard of the god of the river. 



