VIII VOYAGE UP THE RIO NEGRO 269 
Negro, my little vessel and the Indians necessary 
to work it being all in readiness. I intended to 
have written out for you my Journal in its entirety, 
and I think it would have interested you, but I 
must content myself with a few extracts. I may 
premise that the voyage was on the whole a perfect 
contrast to that up the Amazon from Santarem, 
and, in short, the first agreeable voyage I have 
made in South America. The canoe being my 
own, I was master of my movements — could stop 
when I liked and go on when I liked. The cabin, 
too, was new and commodious. It was long enough 
to suspend my hammock within it, and I made 
myself besides a nice soft bed of thick layers of the 
bark of the Brazil-nut tree (which you will find 
mentioned by Humboldt under the name of Ber- 
tholletia) ; my large boxes ranged along the sides 
served for tables and the smaller ones for seats ; 
while from the roof I suspended my gun and 
various things that I required to have constantly 
at hand. The fore-cabin or tolda da proa was 
occupied by baskets of farinha, a few bushels of 
salt, and various other things which I was taking 
with me to barter with the Indians ; it served also 
as a sleeping-place for the men when the weather 
was wet, otherwise they preferred sleeping outside. 
As to myself, warned by past experience of the risk 
of sleeping in the open air on these rivers, I con- 
stantly passed the night inside the tolda, and to 
this I attribute my not being attacked by the fevers 
which have proved fatal to so many Europeans on 
the Rio Negro. The cool of the evening and the 
early part of the night, especially when we had the 
moon, I was accustomed to pass seated outside the 
