376 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
water than it ought to do ; but I am in hopes the 
muddy waters of the Casiquiari will stop the seams 
completely. 
This may give you a faint idea of what boat- 
building is here, and you may well suppose I am 
disgusted with it. The worst of it is that one 
cannot calculate on a boat's lasting more than a 
couple of years, for the timber made use of is almost 
entirely of the inundated banks of the rivers, cut 
when the latter are high so as to fall into the 
water and be floated away in rafts, and it speedily 
perishes. There are many excellent timbers of 
the terra firme, but they have no means here of 
getting the trunks to the water-side. 
The name piragoa is given to vessels built on 
a curiara (the name given here to boats made out 
of a single trunk) as a foundation. Vessels of a 
larger description are built of boards from the very 
keel and are called lanchas. My piragoa is 1 1 varas 
(each 2 feet 9^ inches English) in length, a little 
less than 3 varas in breadth where widest, and not 
quite a vara in depth. In the afterpart the carroza 
(cabin) occupies a length of 5 varas ; it is entirely 
of boards and not thatched with palm-leaf as is 
most customary here. The flooring is about 6 
inches below the edge of the boat, and the roof, 
which is nearly flat — very slightly convex — is so 
high that I can sit very comfortably within the 
carroza on a little Indian stool of about 6 inches 
high. There is a small square window on each 
side and one in the stern of the carroza which can 
be opened to admit the air when necessary, and 
it is entered by folding doors which can be secured 
by a padlock. The roof is very difficult to make 
