Oroonoko retained it's habitual temperature of 

 27.70* rp| ie tormen t 0 f moschettoes aug- 

 mented severely, notwithstanding the deerease 

 of the heat. We had never suffered so much 

 from them as at San Borja. We could neither 

 speak nor uncover the face, without the mouth 

 and nose being filled with insects. We were 

 surprised not to find the thermometer at 35° or 

 36° ; the extreme irritation of the skin made us 

 believe, that the air was scorching. We passed 

 the night on the beach of Guaripo -j*. The fear 

 of the little caribe fish prevented us from bath- 

 ing. The crocodiles we had met with this day 

 were all of an extraordinary size, from twenty- 

 two to twenty-four feet. 



April the 14th. Our sufferings from the zan- 

 cudoes made us depart at five o'clock in the 

 morning. There are fewer insects in the strata 

 of air that repose immediately on the river, than 

 near the edge of the forests. We stopped to 

 breakfast at the island of Guachaco j, where the 

 granite is immediately covered by a formation 

 of sandstone, or agglomerate. This sandstone 

 contains fragments of quartz, and even of feld- 



* 22 2° R. 



f Height of the barometer, at 6'' in the evening-, 335*6 

 lines; cent, therm., 25*3°. The little irregularities of the 

 horary variations render the influence of the slope of the river 

 on the height of the barometer scarcely perceptible. 



I Or Vachaco. 



