XI 
SAN CARLOS 
373 
to be killed rather than relax their hold ere they 
had sucked their fill. There is a species with a 
reddish body, the mutiica-piranga, rather frequent 
in caatingas, and its bite is very severe. Generally 
speaking, the forests of the Rio Negro are not 
much infested by stinging flies. By the rivulets 
there are occasionally a few mosquitoes and long- 
legged zancudos, and in sandy, open, low forests 
there are at certain times a good store of the 
smaller flies and the above-mentioned mutiica- 
piranga. 
On the Amazon as far as the Barra, the only 
plague by day is the mutilca. At a day or two 
below the Barra, a stray pium now and then visited 
us ; but on the Solimoes the pium and mutuca by 
day and the carapana by night leave the poor 
voyager scarce a moment's respite, and the farther 
one goes up the river the worse one finds it. 
[The following letter, written a few days before 
leaving San Carlos for the Orinoco, well illustrates 
the difficulties and delays a traveller in these 
countries is exposed to, and also gives a good 
description of the boat which Spruce had built for 
the purpose of the voyage : — ] 
To Mr. John Teasdale 
San Carlos, Nov. 20, 1853. 
... It cannot be less than three months since 
I wrote to Sir William Hooker to say that I was 
just on the point of starting ! I knew, in fact, of 
nothing to detain me : my boat was completed and 
in two days might have been caulked and launched, 
and my goods were all packed up for embarking. 
