lo NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
lamp which burnt dimly in a corner of the room 
gave too little light to allow me to see clearly what 
it was. I leaped from my hammock, seized my 
tergado, sprang across the room, and as I pinned 
the monster to the ground, he opened wide his 
wings and showed himself to be a young bat of the 
largest kind. I had scarcely performed this feat 
when the two parent bats sallied forth from the 
roof and attacked me ; and when I beat them off, 
they flew round and round the room, attempting to 
strike me with their wings every time they passed 
me, and I them with my tercado. By this time 
King was wide awake, and seeing the odd combat 
that was going on, but not knowing how it had 
originated, sat up in his hammock convulsed with 
laughter, in which I heartily joined. 
On the 24th of August we visited an Indian 
settlement by an igarape, about five miles inland 
from Mr. Campbell's house, in order to see the 
manufacture of fireproof pottery, and especially the 
Caraipe tree, in whose bark (mixed with the clay) 
was said to reside the fire-resisting property. The 
identification of this tree had been specially recom- 
mended to me from England, where, from the 
similarity of the name, it had been supposed to 
be a species of Caraipa, a genus of the order 
Ternstromiaceae. ... 
One of Mr. Campbell's mulattos accompanied us 
as guide. Leaving the beaten track, he took us by 
a short cut through the forest, along a hunter's 
trail, where my unpractised eyes could scarcely 
distinguish any semblance of a path. We reached 
the igarape, which was not very wide, but as such 
