IN HUMBOLDT'S COUNTRY 409 
Jan. 2. ... In the evening when cooking our 
supper there came down to us a curiara with seven 
Maquiritares whom their chief (Ramon Tussari) 
had sent to assist in passing the second fall (Uari- 
nama). I had met him at Esmeralda, coming 
down with turtle from the Guapo, and he had 
promised to send me assistance by the Sunday, 
when we calculated we might reach the falls. 
Some of the men were tall ; all remarkably fair 
(light red-brown) and long-nosed, but not so good- 
looking as the Uaupes. Only one, a brother-in- 
law of Tussari, wore shirt and trousers.^ 
The rest had a large tanga (apron) of a rect- 
angular piece of cotton-cloth with tassels at the 
corners, tucked in under a string encircling the 
loins, and at the back passing up over one shoulder 
or allowed to hang down. They buy this of the 
Piaroas, by whom it is manufactured. They have 
garters of many convolutions of their own twisted 
hair below the knee. The arm is much compressed 
below the shoulder by a ligature like the garter of 
the Uaupes. They have a thick mass of beads 
(mostly blue) round the neck, and waist-bands of 
white beads. 
They were very noisy, and very curious in 
examining everything about the piragoa. 
This morning at 8 we reached the second fall 
— a long rapid where the river spreads out wide 
and shallow and runs over a bed of rounded pebbles 
rarely larger than one's head. We struggled for 
two hours to find a passage, but the piragoa 
^ Only this one spoke a little Spanish ; he was a tall, well-made man named 
Miguel. He was at Sao Joaquim on the Rio Branco when Schomburgk left 
on his expedition to Esmeralda, and was engaged by him as a guide. He 
continued with Schomburgk for three months. 
