XI 
SAN CARLOS 
375 
forcing them. My boat had not been built under 
cover, and after completion, lay some six weeks 
baking in the sun, which opened all the seams 
and split some of the timbers. As she rested on 
the ground (for we use no " stocks " here, except 
for the amusement of the Indians) the termite 
ants had found their way into her and began to 
eat up some ribs that were of softer wood than they 
should be. I did not find them out until after 
the boat was launched, and it has cost me infinite 
trouble to kill them, with boiling water, for they 
were in thousands on thousands. 
At length, Don Diego Pina — an old gentleman 
who resides at Solano on the Casiquiari, and is 
perhaps the only racional in the Canton del Rio 
Negro who remembers seeing Humboldt — was 
appointed Comisario, but after removing to San 
Carlos, it took him two or three weeks to get the 
Indians back to the pueblo. When they came 
every one brought his stock of bureche (the cacha^a 
of Brazil), for not an Indian of them but has his 
still and his cane-patch. Two caulkers were set 
to work on my boat, but as they were constantly 
intoxicated and only worked half the day, they 
spent a whole week over it, and their work was 
so ill done that the night after the boat was 
launched it went to the bottom. It had cost me 
three gallons and a half of rum to put it into the 
water, and I had to come forward with another 
half-gallon' to get it out again. I then set the 
caulkers at work to stop the holes where water 
entered ; but as they and all their assistants were 
intoxicated, the work was done very imperfectly, 
and at this very time my boat makes much more 
