ii6 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
Several small streams of black water were 
passed to-day. There was no perceptible current 
in them, and when the river is fuller it evidently 
enters some way up them. . . . The river winds 
much, and reminds me of the Upper Pacimoni. This 
morning we passed one reach due S. {i.e. where the 
course of the river is N.), and towards evening we 
made much easting. 
May 9. — When our Indians have been an hour 
or two on their way in the morning they proceed 
to take their chicha. From the mass of crushed and 
fermented yucas which they keep in a monstrous 
jar in the prow, they take out handfuls and mix 
with water to a drinkable consistency. The drink- 
ing-vessels used are wide shallow basins varnished 
and painted, whose use is general amongst the 
Indians of Maynas. Each Indian will drink one 
of these full twice or thrice — equivalent to about 
half a gallon. In the process they occupy at least 
half an hour, and are as merry and noisy (but not 
so quarrelsome) as a lot of navvies over their beer. 
At the same time they make their toilet, which 
consists in carefully combing out their hair with 
cane combs of their own manufacture, then tucking 
up the back hair with a liana passed round the 
head, while the narrow strip of long hair at the 
sides is allowed to hang down over the ears, and 
that on the forehead has been cut short, as already 
mentioned. After this comes the painting. Each 
man carries in his bag a slender bamboo tube, a 
little larger than one's finger, filled with anatto or 
chica ; from this he extracts a portion with a small 
