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was impossible to pass the night in the canoe ; 

 the moschettoes, which tormented us during the 

 day, accumulated toward evening beneath the 

 toldo, that is, the roof covered with palm leaves, 

 which served to shelter us from the rain. Our 

 hands and faces had never before been more 

 swelled. Father Zea, who till then boasted of 

 having in his missions of the cataracts the larg- 

 est and most valiant moustiques (las mas fero- 

 ces), at length gradually acknowledged, that the 

 sting of the insects of the Cassiquiare was the 

 most painful he had ever felt. We experienced 

 great difficulty amid a thick forest in finding 

 wood to make a fire, the branches of the trees, 

 in those equatorial regions where it always rains, 

 being so full of juice, that they will scarcely 

 burn at all. Where there is no bare shore, that 

 old wood can scarcely be procured, which the 

 Indians say is baked in the sun. However, fire 

 was necessary to us only as a defence against 

 the beasts of the forest; for we had such a 

 scarcity of provision that we had little need 

 of it to prepare our food. 



On the 18th of May, toward the evening, we 

 discovered a spot where the bank of the river 

 was furnished with wild cacao-trees. The nut 

 of these cacaos is small and bitter ; the Indians 

 of the forest suck the pulp, and throw away the 

 nut, which is picked up by the Indians of the 

 missions, and sold to persons who are not very 



