94 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
hammer, and no materials for lighting a fire. We 
had in a bag a little roast pirarucu and farinha, and 
although the latter had been transformed into a 
glutinous paste by the rain, we made a scanty meal 
on them. After a while we began to feel chilly 
and drowsy ; but had we given way to sleep under 
such circumstances, we might have awaked too stiff 
to move ; to say nothing of the risk of being 
assaulted by jaguars, which we had been told 
abounded in the forests of the caxoeiras. We 
resumed our march, but the night was cloudy, and 
scarcely any of the moon's light penetrated the 
dense forest. However, we scrambled on — now 
plunging into prickly palms, then getting entangled 
in sipos, some of which also were prickly. Even 
by day the sipos are a great obstruction to travel- 
ling in the untracked forest ; what must they be, 
then, by night ! One's foot trips in a trailing sipo 
— attempting to withdraw it, one gives the sipo an 
additional turn, and is perhaps thrown down ; or, 
in stooping to disentangle it, one's chin is caught 
as in a halter by a stout twisted sipo hanging 
between two trees. At one time we got on the 
track of large ants, which crowded on our legs and 
feet and stung us terribly, and we were many 
minutes before we could get clear of them. . . . 
Bewildered and exhausted, we sought the river- 
side, and scrambled to some granite blocks stand- 
ing high out of shallow water. There we lay 
down and waited until the moon approached the 
zenith, when we again plunged into the forest, with 
just light enough to enable us to select the thinnest 
parts, but not to show what stones, stumps, and 
sipos lay in our way. With cautious steps and 
