422 PICTURESQUE ENCAMPMENT. 



those equatorial regions where it always ruins, being so full 

 of sap, that they will scarcely burn. There being no bare 

 shore, it is hardly possible to procure old wood, which the 

 Indians call wood baked in the sun. However, fire was 

 necessary to us only as a defence against the beasts of the 

 forest; for we had such a scarcity of provision that we had 

 little need of fuel for the purpose of preparing our food. 



On the 18th of May, towards evening, we discovered a 

 spot where wild cacao-trees were growing on the bank of the 

 river. The nut of these cacaos is small and bitter; the Indians 

 of the forest suck the pulp, and throw away the nut, which 

 is picked up by the Indians of the missions, and sold to 

 persons who are not very nice in the preparation of their 

 chocolate. "This is the Puerto del Cacao" (Cacao Port), 

 said the pilot; " it is here our Padres sleep, when they go to 

 Esmeralda to buy sarbacans* andijuvias (Brazil nuts). Not 

 five boats, however, pass annually by the Cassiquiare; and 

 since we left Maypures (a whole month previously), we had 

 not met one living soul on the rivers we navigated, except in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of the missions. To the south 

 of lake Duractumuni we slept in a forest of palm-trees. It 

 rained violently, but the pothoses, arums, and lianas, fur- 

 nished so thick a natural trellis, that we were sheltered as 

 under a vault of foliage. The Indians whose hammocks 

 were placed on the edge of the river, interwove the helico- 

 nias and other musaceae, so as to form a kind of roof over 

 them. Our fires lighted up, to the height of fifty or sixty 

 feet, the palm-trees, the lianas loaded with flowers, and the 

 columns of white smoke, which ascended in a straight line 

 toward the sky. The whole exhibited a magnificent spec- 

 tacle; but to have enjoyed it fully, we should have breathed 

 an air clear of insects. 



The most depressing of all physical sufferings are those 

 which are uniform in their duration, and can be combated 

 only by long patience. It is probable, that in the exhala- 

 tions of the forests of the Cassiquiare M. Bonpland imbibed 

 the seeds of a severe malady, under which he nearly sunk on 

 our arrival at Angostura. Happily for him and for me, 

 nothing led us to presage the danger with which he was 



* The bamboo tubes furnished by the Arundinaria, used for projecting 

 ioe poisoned arrows of the natives. See Views of Nature p. 180. 



