500 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
a limited tract of low forest, since in all his excur- 
sions in the surrounding country it was nowhere 
else met with.] - ; 
I left San Carlos for the Barra on the 23rd 
of November, with a 
crew of four Indians. 
As I was going down 
the stream I did not 
trouble myself to seek 
for more, and I thought 
myself fortunate in meet- 
ing with Indians who 
had previously made the 
same voyage, though 
three of them (an old 
man and his two sons) 
were quite new to me. 
The old man was my 
pilot, and at the first 
night from San Carlos 
we slept at his sitio, a 
little within a small 
stream entering the Rio 
Negro on the left bank. 
. . . [Spruce here de- 
scribes how his crew pro- 
posed to murder him as 
related in his Journal. 
The letter then continues : — ] During the course of 
five years' travel among Indians, I had been accus- 
tomed to repose the utmost confidence in them : to 
sleep unarmed in the midst of them in the most 
lonely places, and frequently to stroll into the forest 
alone when we stopped by the shore to cook, when, 
Fig. —Mam'itia stibi7iervis, Spruce. 
In low forest between San Carlos 
and Solano. (R. S.) 
