IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 399 
about the mouth of the Vasiva, where I finally lost sight 
ofit. . . . 
Japura — Erisma japura, Spruce (Vochyacece) — scarcely 
occurs in the forests of the Casiquiari, and Uacu seems to 
disappear a little way up, but Cumiri is found throughout in 
terra firme. Chiquichiqui (the Piassaba of Brazil) is exceedingly 
frequent throughout. At the back of Ponciano and Monagas are 
noble groves of it mixed with arbusculse and shrubs, but with 
scarcely any lofty trees, and the effect is exceedingly novel and 
striking. 
At one day's journey above Dorotomuni the shores put on 
quite an Amazonian look, being in some places sloping, sandy, 
and clad with tall rank grasses (chiefly a Panicum with the habit 
of Paspahim pyramidale) mixed with Mimosa asperata and a 
couple of weedy Ipomoeas. Amidst this mass rise the slender 
soft stems of a Polygonea to the height of 30 feet, and on the 
water's edge I saw a few plants of a real Polygonum resembling 
one from the Solimoes. An Inga with broadly-winged petioles 
occurs in long continuous beds, and the species, so frequent lower 
down, almost disappears (but reappears on the Orinoco). There 
are great quantities of a bushy, narrow-leaved laurel, apparently 
one of the white-flowered species, such as are frequent on low 
shores of both black and white waters. A narrow-leaved, cedar- 
like Xylopia (Anonacese), very frequent on the Upper Uaupes, 
Rio Negro, and on the Uaupes, and from its singular habit 
very conspicuous and ornamental, scarcely passes the mouth of 
the Pacimoni, and the same may be said of Heterostemon 7im?ios. 
On the Upper Casiquiari and Orinoco another Xylopia with 
similar habit is frequent, but it has fewer, smaller, and less rigid 
leaves, and the tree is generally loftier. If there is no Hetero- 
stemon on the banks, another and more remarkable species 
{H. simplicifolia^ Mgf.), gathered also at Sao Gabriel, is very 
frequent in the forest all the way up. Nutmegs are tolerably 
frequent on the banks. The commonest species had just gone 
out of flower, and was laden with a profusion of rudimentary fruit. 
My glass showed it to have leaves rounded at the apex as in a 
species gathered on the Uaupes. A very remarkable species with 
leaves sometimes nearly 2 feet long had so much the habit and 
form of leaf of Vismia macrophylla that until I came near enough 
to see whether the leaves were alternate or opposite I could not 
distinguish them, for the Vismia was also very frequent. I 
gathered four species which seemed new,, and I avoided every- 
thing which looked suspiciously like Myristica sebifera. I was 
curious enough to notice, wherever I entered the forest on terra 
firme (as I did nearly every time we cooked our meals), the 
families which constituted the vegetation, when I could certainly 
ascertain them from the leaves and mode of growth, and in every 
