866 
SPECIES OF BEAtts. 
Meta. Here, as throughout America, the Indiam> eat little 
meat, and consume scarcely any salt. The chivi of Javita is 
a mixture of muriate of potash and of soda, of caustic lime, 
and of several other earthy salts. The Indians dissolve a 
few particles in water, fill with this solution a leaf of 
heliconia folded in a conical form, and let drop a little, as 
from the extremity of a filter, on their food. 
On the 5th of May we set ofi', to follow on foot our canoe, 
which had at length arrived, by the portage, at the Cano 
Pimichin. We had to ford a great number of streams ; and 
these passages require some caution on account of the vipers 
with which the marshes abound. The Indians pointed out 
to us on the moist clay the traces of the little black bears so 
common on the banks of the Temi. They differ at least in 
size from the Ursus americanus. The missionaries call them 
osso camicero, to distinguish them from the osso palmero or 
tamanoir (Myrmecophaga jubata), and from the osso hor- 
migero, or anteater (tamandua). The flesh of these animals 
is good to eat ; the first two defend themselves by rising on 
their hind feet. The tamanoir of Buffon is called uaraca by 
the Indians ; it is irascible and courageous, which is extra- 
ordinary in an animal without teeth. We found, as we ad- 
vanced, some vistas in the forest, which appeared to us the 
richer, as it became more accessible. We here gathered 
some new species of coffee (the American tribe, with flowers 
in 
piboikuui Ul llj UA II UAWU -» » 1 “““J "" "“"J — ^ . 
jacquinia, and of a composite plant of the Bio Temi, as a kind 
of barbasco, to intoxicate fish ; and finally, the liana, known 
in those countries by the name of vejuco de mavacure, whiC“ 
yields the famous curare poison. It is neither a phyllanthuSi 
nor a coriaria, as M. Willdenouw cornectured, but, as M- 
Kunth’s researches show, very probably a strychnos. 
shall have occasion, farther on, to speak of this venoniou 9 
substance, which is an important object of trade among th e 
panicles, forms probably a particular genus) ; the Galega 
mnfwnnm nf* to Inn'll T.Tia Tnmmift mnlrp nsp n.s TTipv HO 01 
savages. 
The trees of the forest of Pimichin have the gig aI1 ^ lC 
height of from eighty to a hundred and twenty feet. 
these burning climates the lanrineae and amyris* furin sa 
* The great white and red cedars of these coun tides are not the Cedi^ ft 
odorata, but the Amyris altissima, which is an icica of Aublet. 
