344 
MISSION OF SAN BALTHASAB. 
vegetation surprised us the more, as wo had till then seen 
on the banks of the Atahapo only small trees with slender 
trunks, which from afar resembled young cherry-trees. The 
Indians assured that these small trees do not form a very 
extensive group. They are checked in their growth by the 
inundations of the river ; while the dry grounds near the 
Atahapo, the Temi, and the Tuamini, furnish excellent 
timber for building. These forests do not stretch indefi- 
nitely to the east and west, toward the Cassiquiare and the 
Guaviare ; they are bounded by the open savannahs of Ma- 
nuteso, and the Eio Inirida. We found it difficult in the 
evening to stem the current, and we passed the night in a 
wood a little above Mendaxari ; which is another granitic rock 
traversed by a stratum of quartz. We found in it a group 
of fine crystals of black schorl. 
On the 29th, tbe air was cooler. We had no zancudos, 
but the sky was constantly clouded, and without stars. I began 
to regret the Lower Orinoco. We still advanced but slowly 
from the force of the current, and we stopped a great part 
of the day to seek for plants. It was night when we arrived 
at the mission of San Balthasar, or, as the monks style it, 
the mission of la dim/na Pastora de Balthasar de Atahapo- 
We were lodged with a Catalonian missionary, a lively and 
agreeable man, who displayed in these wild countries tbe 
activity that characterises his nation. He had planted a 
garden, where the fig-tree of Europe was found in company 
with the persea, and the lemon-tree with the mammee. The 
village was built with that regularity which, in the north of 
Germany, and in protestant America, we find in the hamlets 
of the Moravian brethren ; and the Indian plantations seemed 
better cultivated than elsewhere. Here we saw for the first 
time that white and fungous substance which I have made 
known by the name of dapicho and zapis.* We immediately 
perceived that it was analogous to india-rubber; but, as the 
Indians made us understand by signs, that it was found 
underground, we were inclined to think, till we arrived at 
the mission of Javita, that the dapicho was a fossil caout- 
chouc, though different from the elastic bitumen of Derby- 
shire. A Poimisano Indian, seated by the fire in the hut of 
* These two words belong to the Poimisano and Paragiii tongue*- 
