400 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
place I saw at least one species of nutmeg, and there were some 
three or four species unknown to me. Of the four gathered only 
one was of the terra firme, the rest were of the gap6. 
Below Monagas are a good many trees of a stout but low 
Anacardium, which seems the same in its leaves as A. gigantetwt. 
The most curious feature of the Casiquiari is the occurrence 
throughout its course, though sparingly, of a Crescentia (calabash- 
tree) in the gapo ; the first I have seen wild, but there was no 
flower or fruit. 
This morning, December i8, I came on a small patch of 
Pontederia with inflated petioles, caught in the immersed 
branches at the margin of the river. It had evidently come from 
the Orinoco and was the first of the tribe I had seen since leaving 
the mouth of the Rio Negro. 
Dec. 2 1. — A little after noon we reached the 
Cano de Calipo ; at a point just above but on the 
opposite side of the river (the right) are beds of 
rock with numerous deeply -graved figures, but 
most of them under water.^ Between three and 
four o'clock we entered the Orinoco. The Casi- 
quiari for the last two days had had chiefly steep 
banks of clay and sand, and the Orinoco has the 
same. In both are here and there rocky points 
and sometimes exposed sandbanks. The Casi- 
quiari upwards is much narrowed, but about its 
mouth it is a little wider. It seems to leave the 
Orinoco nearly at right angles. There are two 
Jagua palms in the entrance on the right bank. 
The Orinoco is about equal in width to the Rio 
Negro at San Carlos, but above it spreads out to a 
great width with beaches emerging in various parts, 
and we had some difficulty in finding a passage for 
the piragoa. . . . 
We supped at a rocky point on the left bank 
where numerous bamboos and other marks indicated 
^ [These were dry on his return, and some were copied. See end of 
Chapter.— Ed,] 
