XI 
4 
SAN CARLOS 
347 
April 6. — In the afternoon I took the montaria 
and crossed to the left bank of the river to visit some 
sitios in search of eatables. At the first I found 
some orange trees, and we filled a basket with the 
fruit, now a great luxury to me as none exists on the 
Uaupes. But at this and at a second sitio there 
was not a pig or a fowl, or even a morsel of baked 
fish. I was directed to a third within a cano 
(igarape), which we entered and sought about for 
the sitio. The cano was about as wide as the 
Derwent at Kirkham, and there was a wide low 
gapo on each side appearing to pass into caatinga 
on the dry land. The sitio was at last discovered, 
well hidden in the forest, and we found in the house 
an elderly Indian woman with some boys. She was 
so rich as to possess three ducks, two of which were 
the parents of a lot of ducklings nestling under a 
basket in the middle of the floor. I immediately 
proceeded to bargain with the woman for the odd 
duck, which she showed no anxiety to part with. 
With some difficulty I induced her to set a price, 
which she did at the moderate sum of three dollars ! 
I offered her an ell of strong calico (worth a dollar 
here). " No," said she, " if you give no more than 
one ell I'll keep my duck," and she pressed the 
favourite affectionately to her breast. At length 
she noticed a small cutlass I had in my hand and 
asked if I would give it for the duck. The offer 
was gladly accepted, and we bore off the duck in 
triumph. The cutlass was not worth more than 
two dollars, yet it was still a high price for the 
duck. 
[There follows here a gap of more than three 
months in the Journal, but the chief events are 
