SFIIP-BUILDING. I59 



town, but no cattle roam tlieii* grassy stretches. These 

 animals wore introduced at San Fernando when the mis- 

 sion was first established, but have long since disappeared. 



Ship-building, in rather a primitive way, is quite largely 

 carried on at San Fernando, the forests affording the best 

 of timber for that purpose. Craft upward of a hundred 

 tons burden are constructed with no other tools than the 

 saw, axe, and hammer. Only the hulls are completed, and 

 when the water is highest these are floated down the 

 Orinoco, or taken around by the Cassiquiare to the Ama- 

 zons. As they cannot ascend the great cataracts of those 

 rivers, they do not return, but new ones are annually built 

 and run down during spring-tide. These hulls are loaded 

 with hammocks, mandToca, piassaba-rope made from the 

 fibres of that palm, and other products of this region. 

 In passing the catai'acts of Mayjoures and Atures, and the 

 great rapids of the Rio Negro, the cargo is removed and 

 cariied around the obsti'uctions by portage ; while only a 

 pilot remains aboard to run the vessel through the rapids 

 — a perilous feat to the adventurous navigator. Both the 

 vessel and its contents are sold, and the voyagers return 

 in small canoes. These craft, when fitted out with rig- 

 ging, are used in the coasting-trade, and in navigating the 

 rivers of the lower country. 



During our sojourn in San Fernando, we occupied a 

 residence temporai'ily vacated. Naked timbers stretched 

 across irom side to side, one of which, giving way one 

 day, came crashing down, striking the ground where, but 

 a moment before, one of our number had been seated. 

 Ants had eaten oif the extremities where it rested upon 

 the mud walls, and caused its falling. One who has never 

 visited the tropics can form no conception of the devas- 

 tation wrought by voracious insects. Houses are literally 

 consumed by them, and whole villages often rendered a 

 pitiable scene of desertion and ruin. 



