198 



THE UCAYALr. 



fifteen feet high. Beaches few and small, running* out in ridges; so 

 that at one moment our men could not touch bottom with their long 

 poles^ and at the next the boat was aground. 



September 29. — We passed a place in the river where there was a 

 beach on each side, and a tree grounded in the middle. On the side 

 which we passed, which was to the right of the tree, we had but four 

 feet water sixty yards from the beach. I suspect the tree was grounded 

 on a sand-flat at the upper end of an island, the lower end of which we 

 had not noticed, and that the channel was on the other side, and close 

 to the right bank of the river. Passed the mouth of the Cairo Pucati, 

 which communicates with the Maranon just below San Regis. It is 

 now entirely dry, and appears a mere fissure in the bank between the 

 cane and small trees growing near it. The sand, which is heaped up at 

 its entrance, is four feet above the present level of the river. 



Stopped and bought some turtle, salt, and salted curassows, (a large, 

 black, game bird, nearly the size, and with something the appearance, 

 of a turkey, called piuri,) from some San Regis people, who were salt- 

 ing fish, which they had taken in a lake near. Their - ranchos were 

 built upon a bluff on the right bank. I could not stay among them 

 for the musquitoes, and had to retreat to the boat. Two large turtles, 

 three salted birds, and half a peck of salt, cost us six strings of small 

 beads. 



September 30. — Passed the mouth of an arm of the river, which is 

 said to leave the main river many miles above, and make the large 

 island of Paynaco. It is navigable for canoes in the wet season ; but, 

 on account of its windings, it takes nearly as long to pass it as it does 

 to pass the main river ; and it is seldom navigated. We see many 

 cranes and hucmanas, (the Egyptian goose before described,) but no 

 animals except flesh-colored porpoises, of which there are a great many. 

 Occasionally we hear " cotomonos," or howling monkeys, in the woods. 

 Dull work ascending the river; anchored near low sand islands with 

 abrupt banks, which were continually tumbling into the stream. 



October 1. — After daylight we landed and shot at cotomonos. One 

 is not aware of the great height of the trees until he attempts to shoot 

 a monkey or a bird out of the topmost branches. He is then surprised 

 to find that the object is entirely out of reach of his fowling-piece, and 

 that only a rifle will reach it. The trees throughout this countiy 

 grow with great rapidity, and, being in a light, thin soil, with a sub- 

 stratum of sand, the roots are superficial, and the trees are continually 

 falling dawn. Nature seems to have made a provision for their sup- 

 port; for, instead of coming down round to the ground, the trunk, about 



