241 



branches of a fromager or bombax ceiba. They 

 fled across the forest, throwing' out those spouts 

 of compressed air and water, which have given 

 them in every language the name of blowers. 

 How singular was this spectacle in the middle 

 of the land, Ihree or four hundred leagues from 

 the mouths of the Oroonoko and the Amazon ! 

 I am not ignorant, that the pleuronectes* of the 

 Atlantic go up the Loire as far as Orleans ; but 

 I persist in thinking, that the dolphins of the 

 Temi, like those of the Ganges, and like the 

 skate (rata) of the Oroonoko, are of species essen- 

 tially different from the dolphins and skates of 

 the ocean. In the immense rivers of South 

 America, and the great lakes of North America, 

 Nature seems to repeat several pelagic forms. 

 The Nile has no porpoises^: those of the sea 

 go up the Delta no farther than Biana and Me- 

 tonbis toward Selamoun. 



At five in the evening we regained with some 

 difficulty the real bed of the river. Our canoe 

 remained fast some minutes between two trunks 

 of trees ; and was scarcely disengaged, when we 

 reached a spot where several paths or small 



* Dabs. 



f Those dolphins, that enter the mouth of the Nile, had 

 however, so much struck the ancients, that in a bust in sye- 

 nite, preserved in the museum at Paris, (Hall of Melpomene, 

 No. 266) the sculptor has represented them half concealed 

 in the undulatory beard of the god of the river. 

 VOL. V. R 



