166 VIPERS IN THE HUT. 



men, little attached to property. A great store of resin 

 was accumulated round the house. This was used by the 

 Indians to pitch their canoes, and fix the bony spines of 

 the ray at the points of their arrows. They found in the 

 Bame place jars filled with a vegetable milk, which served 

 as a varnish, and was celebrated in the missions by the 

 name of " milk for painting." Before they took possession 

 of the deserted hut, the Indians killed two great mapanare 

 serpents. These serpents grow to four or five feet long. 

 As the inside of the hut was filled with grass, and Hum- 

 boldt and Bonpland were lying on the ground, there 

 being no means of suspending their hammocks, they 

 were not without inquietude during the night. In 

 the morning a large viper was found on lifting the 

 jaguar-skin upon which one of their domestics had 

 slept. 



They embarked on the Rio Negro on the 8th of May. 

 Passing the mission of Maroa, and the mouths of tho 

 Aquio and the Tomo, they arrived at the little mission 

 of San Miguel de Davipe. Here they bought provisions, 

 among which were some fowls and a pig. This purchase 

 greatly interested their Indians, who had been a long 

 time deprived of meat. They pressed the travellers to 

 depart in order to reach the island of Dapa, where the 

 pig was to be killed and roasted during the night. They 

 reached this island at sunset, and were surprised to find 

 some cultivated ground on it, and on the top of a small 

 hill an Indian hut. Four natives were seated round a 

 fire of brushwood, in this hut, and they were eating a 

 sort of white paste with black spots. These black spots 

 proved to be large ants, the hinder parts of which resem- 

 bled a lump of grease. They had been dried, and black- 



