446 



the wanderings of imagination, name the falling 

 stars the urine ; and the dew the spittle of the 

 stars*. The clouds thickened anew, and we 

 discerned neither meteors, nor the real stars, 

 for which we had impatiently waited during 

 several days. 



We had been told, t hat we should find the insects 

 at Esmeralda "still more cruel and voracious," 

 than in the branch of the Oronooko which we were 

 going up ; notwithstanding this expectation, we 

 indulged with satisfaction the hope of sleeping 

 at length in a spot that was inhabited, and of 

 taking some exercise in herbalizing. Our satis- 

 faction however was disturbed at our last rest^ 

 ing place on the Cassiquiare. I shall venture 

 to relate a fact, which has nothing in it very 

 interesting to the reader, but which I think I 

 may be permitted to record in a journal that 

 depicts the incidents of a voyage through so 

 wild a country. We slept on the edge of a 

 forest. In the middle of the night we were 

 warned by the Indians, that they heard very 

 near us the cries of the jaguar, and that they 

 came from the top of some neighbouring trees. 

 Such is the thickness of the forests in these 

 regions, that scarcely any animals are to be 

 found there, but such as climb trees, the qua- 

 drumanes, the cercoleptes, the viverras, and 



* In Tamanac, chirique-chucuru and urrupu-saccare. 



