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the banks of the Guainia or Rio Negro. The 

 Temi is only eighty or ninety toises broad, but 

 in any other country than Guiana would be 

 still a considerable river. The aspect of the 

 country is uniform, a forest covering ground 

 perfectly flat. The fine pirijao palm, with 

 it's fruit like peaches, and a new species of 

 bache or mauritia, it's trunk bristled with 

 thorns, rise amid smaller trees, the vegetation 

 of which appears to be retarded by the con- 

 tinuance of the inundations. This mauritia 

 aculeata is called by the Indians juria or 

 cauvaja ; it's leaves are in the form of a fan, 

 and bent toward the ground ; at the centre of 

 every leaf, no doubt from the effect of some dis- 

 ease of the parenchyma, concentric circles of 

 alternate blue and yellow appear, the yellow 

 prevailing toward the middle. We were singu- 

 larly struck by this appearance ; the leaves.* 

 coloured like the peacock's tail, are supported 

 by short and very thick trunks. The thorns are 

 not slender and long like those of the corozo and 

 other thorny palm trees ; but on the contrary 

 very woody, short, and broad at the base, like 

 the thorns of the hura crepitans. On the banks 

 of the Atabapo and the Temi, this palm tree is 

 distributed in groups of twelve or fifteen stems, 

 as close together as if they rose from the same 

 root. These trees resemble in their appearance, 

 form, and scarcity of leaves, the fan-palms and 

 palmettoes of the ancient continent. We re- 



