390 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
CHAP. 
cabin, but they laughed and told me it was not rain 
but bats that were coming, and pointed out a long 
streak of black cloud extending across the river and 
far over the forest on the opposite side. I could 
not at first persuade myself it was a living mass 
until, by looking attentively, I distinctly perceived 
the movements of the little animals who thus sallied 
forth in an army to chase the nocturnal insects con- 
stituting their food. I am almost afraid to estimate 
their numbers, possibly they were not under a 
million ! 
When I have occasionally in the daytime sat 
down by one of these flat, incumbent rocks, my 
senses have been saluted by a warm and by no 
means odoriferous blast from beneath it, and if the 
ear be applied to the edge of the rock an unceasing 
whispering and fluttering noise is heard. I have 
seen children poke bats out from beneath these 
stones with long sticks. 
My crew consisted of nine men : the pilot, seven 
oarsmen, and a little boy. 
On the 29th, at 8 a.m., we reached Solano, a 
rather smaller pueblo than San Carlos, and the only 
ancient settlement on the Casiquiari. Here is an 
old man named Silvestre Caya Meno who recollects 
the Jesuits, and must have seen Humboldt. He is 
quite deaf, but his wife, who is of about the same 
age, has perfect use of her faculties. Both speak 
Spanish much better than any Indians of the 
present generation. Don Diego Pina, who resides 
at Solano as governor, supposes them to be not 
less than a hundred years old. 
In the afternoon of the 30th we reached the rock 
of Guanari, which is a Cocui on a smaller scale. I 
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