452 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
in winter, when it is inaccessible in any direction 
except by water. It is very unhealthy, and June, 
July, and August are the worst months. 
The village much resembles Maroa on the 
Guainia, but is larger and less neat. It has an 
ancient church and convent, and a few good houses. 
The inhabitants seem to be the scum of Venezuela 
— few whites, mostly half - Indians and Zambos. 
Many are fugitives from distant provinces. While 
staying here for two days Spruce examined the 
registers in the convent where travellers enter their 
names, hoping to find some record of Humboldt 
and Bonpland, but all entries before 1842 have dis- 
appeared through neglect, and much of what exists 
is ruined by damp and insects. 
On the Orinoco, a little above the mouth of the 
Guaviare, is a national hacienda, at a place called 
Menicia, where a small quantity of coffee and sugar- 
cane are cultivated, the latter for the fabrication of 
a coarse rum, the former barely sufficient for the 
consumption of the village. 
Spruce's Notes on the Vegetation of the Rivers Temi 
AND Atabapo 
Most of the plants are identical with those of the Pimichin and 
Guainia. The palms noticed are the tufted Mauritia (so abundant 
that even the Indians remarked it), Carana, a Bactris with bunches 
of scarlet fruits, a pretty Desmoncus, and a Jara with solitary 
stems. ... A very frequent tree on the Atabapo is a Henriquezia, 
rarely exceeding 15 feet high. It was in fruit as I went down 
(June), and as I came up (August) it was beginning to flower, but 
I was too weak to gather and preserve it. The corolla was purple, 
and quite as in the Rio Negro species. When the river is full the 
only land accessible on the margin is certain rocks which lie at a 
considerable distance apart, and which travellers exert themselves 
to reach for cooking and sleeping thereon. They are black, 
irregular masses with a little earth only in hollows, which, being 
humid, produces a crop of small annuals in the wet season. 
