444 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap. 
prostrated the decayed Palm on Lake Vasiva. 
Other dead Palms might fall when the full force of 
the squall caught them, but the crash of their fall 
would be drowned in the general roar of the 
tempest, and especially in the continuous roll of 
the thunder. The truth seems to be that it is 
nearly always during a storm such Palms do fall, 
and that their prostration during a season of calm 
is the rarest possible occurrence ; which accounts 
for my having passed four years and a half in the 
forest before I ever heard it, and for others having 
lived the best part of their lives there either with- 
out noticing it, or without caring to ascertain the 
origin of the sound caused by it. It hardly needs 
mention that perfectly vigorous Palm trees, and 
trees of all kinds, may fall during a violent storm. 
Hurricanes that open out long lanes in the forest 
are only too frequent towards the sources of the 
Orinoco, but are exceedingly rare on and near the 
x^mazon. 
Rarity of Ciirative Drtigs among the Indigenes 
From what was said above, it will have been 
seen that, although the medicine-man doses himself 
with powerful narcotics, no drug whatever is 
administered to the patient ; nor could I learn that 
it was ever done by a "regular practitioner." The 
Indians have a few household remedies, but by far 
the greater portion of these have come into use 
since tne advent of the white man from Europe 
and the negro from Africa. Von Martins remarks 
nearly the same thing in the introduction to his 
Systenia Materiae Medicae vegetabilis Brasiliensis 
