72 
The Source of the Ta.kutu. 
tance from above the low-lying Curatcila and Boiodichia trees, while the 
laughter and joking in tlie larger of them showed that we had arrived 
under felicitous auspices. The male occupants, squatttng and quite 
happy, encircled sevei-al large earthen vessels filled with paiwari and 
were handing round perhaps for the hundredth but certainly many a 
time, in conjunction with the calabashes, all the articles of trade that 
they had received in exchange for their provisions the day before. The 
women were busy stringing tbeir glass l)eads. My Indians had naturally 
immediately taken up tlieir places in the circle, and plied the cups as 
diligently as possible, while all I did was to examine the household imple- 
ments. After an hour's rest, during which they threatened to drown me 
in paiwari, we made our way back to Maripa which we nevertheless 
reached before sundown. 
180. By mid day of the 7th May the party had already returned from 
the sources of the Takutu which my brother found to be in 1° 5' Lat. N., 
19 geograi»h*ical miles west of Pirara. From its source onwards the 
Takutu flows towards N.E., receives in 1" 55' a tributary, about the 
same size as the main stream, coming down from Vindaua, and then 
strikes a course towards N.W., to run through an extensive savannah 
which is here and tliere occupied by forest, until, on the further side of 
tlie Tuarutu Range and to the eastward it is joined by the waters of tlie 
AYatuwau. From there onwards it cuts through sterile savannah flats 
already mentioned Avhereits tributary streams consist only of small rivu- 
lets, until the Mahu forces its way into it in 3° 35' Lat. Z'J. and 24 miles 
westward of Pirara whence, merged now together, they make their way 
towards tlie soutli-west. receive the Zuruma or Cotinga on the right bank, 
and finally in 3° 1' 46" Lat. N., some hundred yards ibwve Fort Sao 
Joaquim, junction Avith the Rio Branco. Its whole stret(_h, according to 
my brother's calculations, might amount to some 200 miles: during the 
last fifty it takes a regular backward course while turning towards the 
Rio Branco from N. to S.W. 
181. The journey to its source was attended witli the greatest diffi- 
culties l)ecause it led all the time through pathless forest. All tlie river- 
beds the party crossed were without water, until after a four and twenty 
hours' march they were able to quench their thirst in the waters of the 
Takutu. Its bed was still 10 to 12 feet wide here and consisted of a num,- 
ber of connected pools containing almost blackish watei-, a colour that it 
only first lost when it flowed through the ochreous and clayey savannahs. 
Owing to the tint, the Wapisianas call it Buti-vanura or Black Water. 
After following tlie banks several miles fartlier up, the party struck the 
source of the river itself in a thicket of wild bambu and trees reaching 
to the skies. 
182. One of the Indians of the party luought back a dead Couata 
monkey {AfrJrs paniftciis, Geoff.) that he had killed out of a troop in the 
neighbourhood of Maripa.. It is unquestionably one of the ugliest of 
apes and the liuntsman having, immediately after arrival, singed it with 
a view to supper, I was so struck with its resemblance to a negro child, 
that I had to turn away from the meal so as not to re-awake antipathies 
