356 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
Indians. ... I have also seen and conversed with two female 
children stolen from the Carapanas in these expeditions. 
To return to the Orinoco. I have met at San Carlos several 
people who have been as far as the Raudal de los Guaharibos. 
The most intelligent of these, and the person who perhaps of all 
others knows most of the country between the Casiquiari and the 
sources of the Orinoco, is an old gentleman called Don Diego 
Pina, residing now in Solano (a little within the Casiquiari), but 
when Schomburgk passed this way residing in San Carlos and 
acting as Comisario. He is unfortunately quite blind, and can- 
not therefore point out anything on my maps, but his memory 
seems perfect for distances and bearings. According to him, it 
takes a month to reach the raudal from Esmeralda, travelling as 
traders are accustomed to do here, that is, stopping at all the 
canos, within which the Indians usually fix their habitations. The 
Orinoco above the raudal is still a large river, which in the force 
of the rainy season might be navigated by piragoas ^ of consider- 
able size. He is of opinion that the real sources of the Orinoco 
are very much to the eastward of what is supposed by Humboldt 
in his Aspects of Natiwe ; and it seems to be clearly made out that 
they are at least considerably to the east of the sources of the Rio 
Branco, or, in other words, that the system of the Rio Branco 
overlaps (if I may so say) that of the Orinoco — a circumstance not 
without parallel in other river systems. 
Don Diego is perhaps the only white now living in the Canton 
del Rio Negro who recollects Humboldt in Venezuela. He was 
making turtle oil on the Orinoco, on a playa near the mouth of the 
Apure, when that distinguished traveller passed on his way towards 
the cataracts. A person died in San Fernando two or three years 
ago who had seen Humboldt and Bonpland at Esmeralda, and 
remembered the difficulty they had in procuring the flowers of the 
Juvia {Bertholletia excelsa), for which, said he, they offered an 
ounce of gold. At the season of fruit of this tree the Guaharibos 
descend much below the raudal in order to collect it for food, and 
at that time the Indians of the Casiquiari, in parties of not more 
than five or six, lie in wait for them and carry off such as they can 
lay hold on, making of them slaves for cultivating their cuniicos. 
Many Indians on the Casiquiari can show lance-wounds received 
from the Guaharibos in these expeditions. 
I should mention that Don Gregorio Diaz has also travelled 
much in the rivers eastward of the Casiquiari, and in his voyages 
about the head-waters of the Siapa must have come very near the 
sources of the Orinoco. 
^ The piragoa of Venezuela is the same as the igarate of Brazil, and has for 
its foundation a hollowed tree-trunk, above which are fastened three or more 
planks on each side. 
