164 DOLPHINS IN THE FOREST. 



the river; and they proceeded southward across the 

 forest, through open channels of four or five feet broad. 

 The depth of the water seldom exceeded half a fathom. 

 These channels were formed in the inundated forest like 

 paths on dry ground. The Indians, in going from one 

 mission to another, passed with their boats as much as 

 possible by the same way ; but the communications not 

 being frequent the force of vegetation sometimes pro- 

 duced unexpected obstacles. An Indian, furnished with 

 a machete, a great knife, the blade of which was fourteen 

 inches long, stood at the head of their boat, employed 

 continually in chopping off the branches that crossed 

 each other from the two sides of the channel. In the 

 thickest part of the forest they were astonished by an 

 extraordinary noise. On beating the bushes, a shoal of 

 fresh- water dolphins, four feet long, surrounded their 

 boat. These animals had concealed themselves beneath 

 the branches of a Bombax ceiba. They fled across the 

 forest, throwing out those spouts of compressed air and 

 water which have given them in every language the name 

 of "blowers." How singular was this spectacle in an 

 inland spot, three or four hundred leagues from the 

 mouths of the Orinoco and the Amazon ! 



At five in the evening they regained with some diffi- 

 culty the bed of the river. Their canoe remained fast 

 i'nv some time between two trunks of trees; and it was 

 no sooner disengaged than they reached a spot where 

 several small channels crossed each other, so that the pilot 

 was puzzled to distinguish the most open path. They 

 uavigated through a fo rest so thick that they could guide 

 themselves neither by the sun nor by the stars. 



On the 1st of May the Indians chose to depart long 



