244 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [March, 



scarifying substances which act upon civilised man. The tree 

 is one of the loftiest in the forest, but the fruit falls as soon as 

 ripe, and its hard woody coating preserves it from injury. 

 Baskets, shirts, trousers, etc., were soon filled with the fruit 

 and emptied into the canoe ; and I made each of the Indians 

 bring a small basketful for me ; so that we had " mingau de 

 ocoki " for three succeeding mornings. 



The rocks from Carurii often present a scoriaceous appear- 

 ance, as if the granite had been remelted. Sometimes they 

 are a mass of burnt fragments, sometimes a honeycombed rock 

 with a shining surface. In some places there are enclosed 

 fragments of a finer-grained rock, apparently sandstone, and 

 numerous veins and dykes, which often cross each other in 

 three or four sets. The rocks are, in many places, so broken 

 and cleft vertically, as to appear stratified and thrown up on 

 end. The rounded form and concentric arrangement, observed 

 in the Rio Negro, is here also constantly met with. The 

 interstices of the rounded and angular masses of rock are often 

 filled with a curious volcanic substance, which outwardly re- 

 sembles pitch, but consists of scoriae, sand, clays, etc., variously 

 cemented together. 



On the loth we passed the " Tapioca," " Tucdno " (Toucan), 

 " Tucunare' " (a fish), " Uaracii pinfmi " (a fish), and " Tyeassii " 

 (Pig) caxoeiras. The first was very bad, and both difficult and 

 dangerous to pass ; it consisted of many distinct falls among 

 huge masses of rock. At one place the canoe remained stuck* 

 fast, amidst foaming waters, on the very edge of a fall, for 

 nearly an hour ; all the efforts of the Indians could not move 

 it forward. They heaved it over from one side to the other, 

 but with no effect ; till I began to despair of getting out of the 

 difficulty before night. At last the canoe suddenly moved on, 

 with apparently not so much force as had been before applied 

 to it ; but my Indians, being of several nations, did not under- 

 stand any common language, and it was impossible to get them 

 to act in concert, or obey any leader. It was probably some 

 chance combination of forces, that at last extricated us from 

 our unpleasant situation. At this fall, on the rocks, were very 

 numerous figures, or picture-writings, and I stopped to make 

 drawings of them ; of which I had by this time a rather ex- 

 tensive collection. 



The next three falls were small rapids ; but the last, which 



