66 OVER THE MOUNTAINS TO THE LLANOS. 



It was after sunset wlicn we entered the place, which 

 comprises about five thousand inhabitants. 



Through the assistance of Mr. E. Rodriguez, a German 

 resident, we secured a canoe and crew for our journey to 

 Baul, the first town reached in descending the Pao, and 

 about half the distance to San Fernando de Apure. Sup- 

 plies for a week's voyage were requisite, and these we set 

 about procuring. First was fresh beef, brought to us in 

 leathery strips and gristly sheets, which* after it was 

 thoroughly salted, we dried, and then, with the Venezue- 

 lians, called it came seca. To our meat were added cas- 

 sava, goats' cheese, salt, papelon, or the consolidated sugar 

 of the cou.ntry, bottles of manteca, or butter, with a lib- 

 eral quantity of green plantains. Then there were culi- 

 nary utensils — two iron pots, one for cofiee, the other for 

 general purposes — and the indispensable machete, which 

 answered for axe and carving-knife. 



The morning of the 25th of October, after three days' 

 delay at El Pao, we were ready to embark upon our 

 voyage. Our craft was long — to uneducated American 

 minds, like ours, too long — but was not at all successful as 

 to width, but then it is in canoes as little as in mortals to 

 command success in every particular, and we can say for 

 our boat that length covered a multitude of sins as Avell 

 as feet. For a picture of it, scoop out forty feet of a 

 tree, with the largest diameter less than two feet, and the 

 average hardly more than one, build a thatch, or carroza, 

 over the middle half, just filling out the original contour 

 of the log, tie a rough steei'ing-oar to the stern, and call 

 the whole a hongo, and you have it complete. As at that 

 time we were modest and unpretending, our crew was 

 small. First, Viviano, generalissimo of the palanca., armed 

 Avith a long pole, occupied the bow. His duty was to 

 walk toward the stern as far as the carroza would permit, 

 leaning heavily on his palanca, placed on the bottom of 



