350 
extraordinary henconiee. 
dated to tlie extent of more than half a square league. To 
avoid the sinuosities of the river and shorten the passage, 
the navigation is here performed in a very extraordinary 
manner. The Indians made us leave the bed of the river ; 
and we proceeded southward across the forest, through 
paths (sendas), that is, through open channels of four or 
live feet broad. The depth of the water seldom exceeds 
half a fathom. These sendas are formed in the inundated 
forest like paths on dry ground. The Indians, in going 
from one mission to another, pass with their boats as much 
as possible by the same way ; but the communications not 
being frequent, the force of vegetation sometimes produces 
unexpected obstacles. An Indian, furnished with a machete 
(a great knife, the blade of which is fourteen inches long), 
stood at the head of our boat, employed continually in 
chopping off the branches that crossed each other from the 
two sides of the channel. In the thickest part of the 
forest we were astonished by an extraordinary noise. On 
beating the bushes, a shoal of toninas (fresh-water dolphins) 
four feet long, surrounded our boat. These animals had 
concealed themselves beneath the branches of a frontager, 
or Bombax ceiba. They fled across the forest, throwing 
out those spouts of compressed air and water which have 
given them in every language the name of ‘ blowers.’ How 
singular was this spectacle in an inland spot, three or four 
hundred leagues from the mouths of the Orinoco and the 
Amazon ! I am aware that the pleuronectes (dabs) of the 
Atlantic go up the Loire as far as Orleans ; but I am, 
nevertheless, of opinion that the dolphins of the Temi, 
like those of the Ganges, and like the skate (raia) of the 
Orinoco, are of a species essentially different from the 
dolphins and skates of the ocean. In the immense rivers 
of South America, and the great lakes of North America, 
nature seems to repeat several pelagic forms. The Nil 6 
has no porpoises :* those of the sea go up the Delta no 
farther than Biana and Metonbis towards Selamoun. 
At five in the evening we regained with some difficulty 
* Those dolphins that enter the mouth of the Nile, did not escape the 
observation of the ancients. In a bust in syenite, preserved in the 
museum at Paris, the sculptor has represented them half concealed in the 
u adulatory beard of the god of the river. 
