AT THE BIO 81517. 207 



Our passage from the island of Cuba to the coast of 

 South America terminated at the mouth of the Rio Sinu, 

 and it occupied sixteen days. The roadstead near the Punta 

 del Zapote afforded very bad anchorage; and in a rough 

 sea, and with a violent wind, we found some difficulty in 

 reaching the coast in our canoe. Everything denoted that 

 we had entered a wild region, rarely visited by strangers. 

 A few scattered houses form the village of Zapote : we found 

 a great number of mariners assembled under a sort of shed, 

 all men of colour, who had descended the Hio Sinu in their 

 barks, to carry maize, bananas, poultry, and other provi- 

 sions, to the port of Carthagena. These barks, which are 

 from fifty to eighty feet long, belong for the most part to the 

 planters (haciendados) of Lorica. The value of their largest 

 freight amounts to about 2000 piastres. These boats are 

 flat-bottomed, and cannot keep at sea when it is very 

 rough. The breezes from the N.E. had, during ten days, 

 blown with violence on the coast, while, in the open sea, as 

 far as 10 lat., we had only had slight gales, and a constantly 

 calm sea. In the aerial, as in the pelagic currents, some 

 layers of fluids move with extreme swiftness, while others 

 near them remain almost motionless. The zambos of the 

 Eio Siuu wearied us with idle questions respecting the 

 purpose of our voyage, our books, and the use of our in- 

 struments : they regarded us with mistrust ; and to escape 

 from their importunate curiosity, we went to herborize in 

 the forest, although it rained. They had endeavoured, aa 

 usual, to alarm us by stories of boas (traga-venado), vipers, 

 and the attacks of jaguars ; but during a long residence 

 among the Chayma Indians of the Orinoco, we were habi- 

 tuated to these exaggerations, which arise less from the 

 credulity of the natives, than from the pleasure they take 

 in tormenting the whites. Quitting the coast of Zapote, 

 covered with mangroves,* we entered a forest remarkable 

 for a great variety of palm-trees. We saw the trunks of 

 the Corozo del Sinu\ pressed against each other, which 



enormous size of the drops of rain that fall at Cumana, Carthagena, and 

 Guayaquil. 



* Rhizophora mangle. 



t In Spanish America, palm-tree* with leaves the most different in 

 kind and species, art called Corona ; the Corczo del Sinu, with a short, 



