148 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
too late to start. This was a most dismal day, 
and filled us with anxious thoughts for the passage 
of the Shuna and Topo, which rivers the Indians 
began to predict would be swollen. They, how- 
ever, were consoled by meeting near our ranchos 
a band of large monkeys, several of which they 
brought down with their blowing-canes. 
June 26. — Rain again from midnight, but about 
nine in the morning it abated so much as to allow us 
to get under way. Road dreadful, what with mud, 
fallen trees, and dangerous passes, of which two in 
particular, along declivities where in places there 
was nothing to get hold of, are not to be thought 
of without a shudder. In three hours we reached 
the Shuna, a larger stream than any we had pre- 
viously passed ; it comes from the north-east in a 
steep rocky course, and can only be forded after 
long-continued dry weather, and even then with 
danger. Now we found it much swollen, but as 
the tops of the rocks on which it is customary to 
rest the bridge were out of water, though we had 
to wade in 3 feet of water to get to them, we 
set to work to get materials for the bridge. These 
were merely three long poles, not of the straightest, 
laid from rock to rock and lashed together with 
lianas. An Indian posted on each rock held up the 
opposite ends of a fourth pole to a convenient 
height to serve for a hand-rail, by means of which 
one could cross the narrow slippery bridge with 
some degree of security. We all got safely across 
the Shuna, but it had again come on to rain, and 
we bent our steps towards the Topo with mis- 
givings that we should find it altogether impass- 
able. On the west side of the Shuna there is a 
