292 NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap. 
It is not very pleasant work here to be always 
among cataracts in my excursions. I have been 
once the whole length of the falls and up again. I 
was out four days, but two of them were lost time. 
I made my station at the house of the pilot of the 
falls, at the foot of the latter, and arrived just in 
time to see the commencement of one of their great 
festas. Much against my will, I was compelled 
also to see the end of it, for no one would stir 
until after two days of drinking and two nights 
of dancing. I was interested to hear the legend 
of the discovery of the mandiocca-root sung in the 
Barre language, but this was poor consolation for 
such a loss of time ; and you may imagine how I 
fretted in my imprisonment on a small rocky island, 
begirt with foaming waters, where I could not find 
a single flower that I had not already gathered. 
In returning, with four men, we passed all the falls 
without accidents until reaching the great fall above- 
mentioned ; here, in dragging the boat up the 
rocks, it filled with water, and a large parcel of 
plants in paper, about 3 feet high, was so com- 
pletely soaked that two men could scarcely carry 
it. Two large vasculae full of fresh specimens 
floated out, but we secured them, and I lost only 
a few plants that were loose in a basket. I was 
much fatigued, having been on the water from 6 
in the morning till 5 in the afternoon, yet I had 
now the soaked parcel to open out and the plants 
to transfer to dry paper, which occupied me until 
midnight. To some of them the mischief was already 
done — the leaves had begun to disarticulate — but 
you must take the specimens as they are, as I 
shall probably not find the same again. Whatever 
