XI 
SAN CARLOS 
381 
I did not look into the flower of Caraipa paniculata (mura- 
piranga), but set it down as a Myrtacea from the habit. On the 
Alto Rio Negro and Uaupes there are other mura-pirangas, 
apparently all Rubiacese, remarkable for the wood, and especially 
the bark, turning red when cut. I have by me just now some 
sticks which I found the other day in the house of an Indian ; 
when the grey cuticle is scraped off these, the inner bark is 
exposed of the finest crimson. From this bark a brilHant red dye 
is prepared, far superior to that of the anatto and carajuru. I 
should like it to be tried in England, though nowadays chem- 
istry has quite revolutionised the art of dyeing. I gathered two 
species on the Uaupes in fruit — I shall be glad if you find them 
to belong to Sprucea, though they are perhaps only Amaiouas 
(Cinchonacese). 
In Hooker's Journal^ January 1853, there is a letter from 
D. C. Bolle, in which, speaking of the rainy months in the Cape 
Verd Isles, he says: "Even within (doors) how could plants be 
dried where clothes, shoes, furniture, everything is covered with 
its appropriate mucor?" Well, this and worse may be said of 
the Rio Negro all the year round, and yet plants can be dried. 
Were I a fixture here and could build a house such as experience 
has taught me to be requisite for keeping things dry and sound, 
I have no doubt I could dry plants here as well as they have 
been dried in any part of the world — I do not say with the same 
ease, for the manual labour under any arrangement would be 
great. Since I left Para I have not inhabited a house through 
the roof of which heavy rains did not find their way. At the 
Barra I was much annoyed by a small, red, virulent-stinging ant 
which got into my boxes and made its nests among my clothes 
and dried plants. On passing in review a parcel of the latter I 
have sometimes found several thicknesses of paper soaked 
through with formic acid, and some of the plants in such a state 
that I was obliged to throw them out. 
[In a letter written from Tarapoto, three years 
later, Spruce again refers to this subject as follows : — ] 
At San Carlos the dampness exceeded what I had experienced 
at Sao Gabriel and on the Uaupes. If I were writing and 
chanced to drop a piece of paper on the ground, if I did not 
take it up for five minutes it was so moistened as not to bear 
writing on. Specimens well dried and put away in a box would 
be covered with mould in a month's time ; but if left on the 
table, a single night sufficed to mould them. Any article of 
metal or ivory left all night on the table would be wet in the 
morning. 
