193 



flow into it north of the raudales of Atures 

 and Maypures, We passed the night on the 

 right bank opposite the mouth of the Rio Siu- 

 curivapu, near a rock called Aricagua. Bur- 

 ring the night an innumerable quantity of 

 bats issued from the clefts of the rock, and 

 hovered around our hammocks. I have men- 

 tioned in another place how injurious these 

 animals are to the cattle ; their number is par- 

 ticularly augmented in years of great drought*. 



April 24th. A violent rain obliged us early 

 to rejoin our boat. We departed at two o'clock, 

 after having lost some books, which we could 

 not find in the darkness of the night, on the 

 rock of Aricagua. The river runs straight 

 from south to north ; it's banks are low, and 

 shaded on both sides by thick forests. We 

 passed the mouths of the Ucata, the Arapa, and 

 the Caranaveni. About four in the afternoon 

 we landed at the Conucos de Siquita, the In- 

 dian plantations of the mission of San Fernando. 

 These good people wished to detain us among 

 them, but we continued to go up against the 

 current, which ran at the rate of five feet a 

 second. This was the result of a measurement 

 I made by observing the time, that a floating 

 body took to go down a given distance. We 



* In Brazil, in the province of Ciara, the bats cause such 

 destruction among the cows, that rich farmers are sometimes 

 reduced by them to indigence. Corog. Bras., vol. 2, p. 224. 



VOL. V. O 



