i85i.] 



LOCALITY FOR A NATURALIST, 



1S3 



arranged to go up the unexplored Uaupes with Senhor L., and 

 even the prospect of his conversation was agreeable after the 

 weary solitude I was exposed to here. 



I would, however, strongly recommend Javita to any natural- 

 ist wishing for a good unexplored locality in South America, 

 It is easily reached from the West Indies to Angostura, and 

 thence up the Orinooko and Atabapo. A pound's worth of 

 fish-hooks, and five pounds laid out in salt, beads, and calico, 

 will pay all expenses there for six months. The traveller should 

 arrive in September, and can then stay till March, and will have 

 the full benefit of the whole of the dry season. The insects 

 alone would well repay any one ; the fishes are also abundant, 

 and very new and interesting ; and, as my collections were lost 

 on the voyage home, they would have all the advantage of 

 novelty. 



On the 31st of March I left Javita, the Commissario having 

 sent five or six Indians to carry my luggage, four of whom 

 were to proceed with me to Tdmo. The Indians of Sao Carlos, 

 Tomo, and Maroa had been repairing their part of the road, 

 and were returning home, so some of them agreed to go with 

 me in the place of the Javitanos. They had found in the 

 forest a number of the harlequin beetles {Acrocinus longima- 

 nus), which they offered me, carefully wrapped up in leaves ; I 

 bought five for a few fish-hooks each. On arriving at Pimichin 

 the little river presented a very different appearance from what 

 it had when I last saw it. It was now brim-full, and the water 

 almost reached up to our shed, which had before been forty 

 yards off, up a steep rocky bank. Before my men ran away I 

 had sent two of them to Tdmo to bring my canoe to Pimichin, 

 the river having risen enough to allow it to come up, and I 

 now found it here. They had taken a canoe belonging to 

 Antonio Dias, who had passed Javita a few days before on his 

 way to Sao Fernando, so that when he returned he had to 

 borrow another to go home in. 



We descended the little river rapidly, and now saw the 

 extraordinary number of bends in it. I took the bearings of 

 thirty with the compass, but then there came on a tremendous 

 storm of wind and rain right in our faces, which rendered it 

 quite impossible to see ahead. Before this had cleared off 

 night came on, so that the remainder of the bends and doubles 

 of the Pimichin river must still remain in obscurity. The 



