A TRONTIEB-POST. 391 



the almonds of the Amazon, or Brazil-nuts. We ha\e made 

 it known by the name of Bertholletia excelsa. The trees 

 attain after eight years' growth the height of thirty feet. 



The military establishment of this frontier consisted of 

 seventeen soldiers, ten of whom were detached for the secu- 

 rity of the neighbouring missions. Owing to the extreme 

 humidity of the air there are not four muskets in a con- 

 dition to be fired. The Portuguese have from twenty-five 

 to thirty men, better clothed and armed, at the little fort 

 of San Jose de Maravitanos. We found in the mission of 

 San Carlos but one garita* a square house, constructed 

 with unbaked bricks, and containing six field-pieces. The 

 little fort, or, as they think proper to call it here, the 

 Oastillo de San Felipe, is situated opposite San Carlos, on 

 the western bank or the Rio Ne^rp. 



The banks of the Upper Gruainia will be more productive 

 when, by the destruction of the forests, the excessive 

 humidity of the air and the soil shall be diminished. In 

 their present state of culture maize scarcely grows, and 

 the tobacco, which is of the finest quality, and much cele- 

 brated on the coast of Caracas, is well cultivated only on 

 spots amid old ruins, remains of the huts of the pueblo viejo 

 (old town). Indigo grows wild near the villages of Maroa, 

 Davipe, and Tomo. Under a different system from that 

 which we found existing in these countries, the Rio Negro 

 will produce indigo, coffee, cacao, maize, and rice, in abun- 

 dance. 



The passage from the mouth of the Rio Negro to Grand 

 Para occupying only twenty or twenty-five days, it would 

 not have taken us much more time to have gone down the 

 Amazon as far as the coast of Brazil, than to return by the 

 Cassiquiare and the Orinoco to the northern coast 01 Ca- 

 racas. We were informed at San Carlos that, on account 

 of political circumstances, it was difficult at that moment 

 to pass from the Spanish to the Portuguese settlements; 

 but we did not know till after our return to Europe the 

 extent of the danger to which we should have been exposed 

 in proceeding as far as Barcellos. It was known at Brazil, 

 possibly through the medium of the newspapers, that I was 



* This word literally signifies a sentry-box ; but it is here employed ia 

 the sense of store-house or arsenal. 



