AEEIVAL AT TnP, KIO SIKU. 
207 
Our passage from tlie island of Cuba to the coast of 
South America terminated at the mouth of the Eio Sinu, 
and it occupied sixteen days. The roadstead near the Punta 
del Zapote afforded very bad anchorage ; and in a rough 
sea, and with a violent wind, we found some difficulty in 
reaching the coast in our canoe. Everything denoted that 
We had entered a wild region, rarely visited by strangers. 
A few scattered houses form the village of Zapote : we found 
a great number of mariners assembled under a sort of shed, 
•ill men of colour, who had descended the liio Sinn in their 
harks, to carry maize, bananas, poultry, and other provi- 
sions, to the port of Garthagena. These barks, which are 
from fifty to eighty feet long, belong for tlie most part to the 
planters (haciendados) of Lorica. 'f lie l alue of their largest 
freight amounts to about 2000 piastres. Those boats aie 
flat-bottomed, and cannot keep at sea when it is lery 
rough. The breezes from the hl.E. had, during ten days, 
blown with violence on the coast, while, in the open sea, as 
far as 10° lat., we had only had slight gales, and a constantly 
calm sea. In the aerial, as in the pelagic currents, some 
layers of fluids move wilh extreme swiftness, while others 
near them remain almost motionless. The zamhos of the 
Itio Sinu wearied us with idle questions respecting the 
purpose of our voyage, our books, and the use of our iu- 
atruments : they regarded us with mistrust ; and to escape 
from their importunate curiosity, w'C went to herborize in 
the forest, although it rained. They had endeavoured, as 
irsual, to alarm us by stories of boas (traga-venado), vipers, 
and the attacks of jaguars ; but during a long residence 
among the Chayma Indians of the Orinoco, we were tiabi- 
tuated to these exaggerations, which arise less from the 
credulity of the natives, than from the pleasure tlicy take 
in tormenting the whites. Quitting the coast of Zapote, 
Covered with mangroves,* we entered a forest remarkable 
for a great variety of palm-trees. We saw the trunks of 
the Corozo del Sinwf pressed against each other, which 
snormous size of the drops of ruin that fall at Cuniana, Garthagena, and 
t^Uajaqail. 
* Rhizophora mangle. , . i-a- » • 
t In Spanish America, palm-trees with leaves the most different in 
l^d and species, are called Corozo ; the Corozo del Sinn, with a short, 
