394 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
CHAP 
slowish movement brought us to the lake, of which 
I took rough bearings. There were great beds of 
Balsa-wood on the sandy beaches left dry in the 
summer. The forest is low and contains much 
novelty, but hardly anything in flower, for it was 
still winter. I found several new Melastomaceae, 
two small- leaved Swartzias, etc. The water is 
black, its junction with the yellow water of the 
Casiquiari is very conspicuous, but the current is 
barely perceptible. On the farther side of the lake 
the river is continued in a broad shallow channel. I 
am told it runs a long way up, and that its course is 
nearly parallel to that of the Casiquiari. From 
near its head-waters Duida is very distinctly visible. 
Much turtle and cabezon are taken in this lake 
when the water is low. 
Dec. II. — At 3 P.M. we reached the Pueblo de 
Ponciano on the left bank. Its founder Ponciano 
was brought up at Solano by Padre Juan, and left 
it some thirty or forty years ago to establish himself 
in this place, where he died about two years since. 
Oil the same spot there had previously been an 
Indian settlement, and it is called Yamadu-bani, 
i.e. the land of the Yamadu, a fabulous animal 
resembling a man in size and aspect, but with long 
skinny legs and arms, which now and then shows 
itself in the forest to the terror of women and 
children. I have found a belief in the existence of 
this sort of wolf-man current among the Indians 
throughout the Amazon and Rio Negro. . . . 
Ponciano led with him several of his countrymen 
(Pacimonares), and they seem to have multiplied 
more than customary among Indians. The six or 
eight houses appeared each to have several families 
