DANGEHS OF EIVEE-NAVIOATIOW. 423 



menaced. The view of the river, and the hum of the insects, 

 were a little monotonous; but some remains of our natural 

 cheerfulness enabled us to find sources of relief during our 

 wearisome passage. "We discovered, that by eating small 

 portions of dry cacao ground without sugar, and drinking a 

 large quantity of the river water, we succeeded in appeasing 

 our appetite for several hours. The ants and the mosquitos 

 troubled us more than the humidity and the want of food. 

 Notwithstanding the privations to which we were exposed 

 during our excursions in the Cordilleras, the navigation from 

 Mandavaca to Esmeralda has always appeared to us the 

 most painful part of our travels in America. I advise those 

 who are not very desirous of seeing the great bifurcation of 

 the Orinoco, to take the way of the Atabapo in preference to 

 that of the Cassiquiare. 



Above the Cano Duractumuni, the Cassiquiare pursues a 

 uniform direction from north-east to south-west. We were 

 surprised to see how much the high steep banks of the 

 Cassiquiare had been undermined on each side by the 

 sudden risings of the water. Uprooted trees formed as it 

 were natural rafts; and being half-buried in the mud, they 

 were extremely dangerous for canoes. We passed the night 

 of the 20th of May, the last of our passage on the Cassi- 

 quiare, near the point of the bifurcation of the Orinoco. 

 We had some hope of being able to make an astronomical 

 observation, as falling-stars of remarkable magnitude were 

 visible through the vapours that veiled the sky; whence we 

 concluded that the stratum of vapours must be very thin, 

 since meteors of this kind have scarcely ever been seen 

 below a cloud. Those we now beheld shot towards the 

 north, and succeeded each other at almost equal intervals. 

 The Indians, who seldom ennoble by their expressions the 

 wanderings of the imagination, name the falling-stars the 

 urine; and the dew the spittle of the stars. The clouds 

 thickened anew, and we discerned neither the meteors, nor 

 the real stars, for which we had impatienly waited during 

 several days. 



We had been told, that we should find the insects at 

 Esmeralda "still more cruel and voracious," than in the 

 branch of the Orinoco which we were going up; nevertheless 



