DIFFICULTY OF LASMVG. 
421 
toises, that is, to a subalpine region the climate of which, 
between the tropics, resembles that of the south of Spain. 
The Bambusa latifolia seems to be peculiar to the basins of 
the Upper Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Amazon ; it 
is a social plant, like all the gramina of the family of the 
nasto'ides ; but in that part of Spanish Guiana which we 
traversed it does not grow in those large masses which the 
Spanish Americans call quadales, or forests of bamboos. 
Our first resting-place above Yasiva was easily arranged. 
We found a little nook of dry ground, free from shrubs, to 
the south of the Cauo Curamuni, in a spot where we saw 
some capuchin monkeys.* They were recognizable by their 
black beards and their gloomy and sullen air, and were 
walking slowly on the horizontal branches of a genipa. 
During the five following nights our passage was the more 
troublesome in proportion as we approached the bifurcation 
of the Orinoco. The luxuriance of the vegetation in- 
creases in a manner of which it is difficult even for those 
acquainted with the aspect of the forests between the tropics, 
to form an idea. There is uo longer a bank : a palisade of 
tufted trees forms the margin of the river. You see a canal 
two hundred toises broad, bordered by two enormous walls, 
clothed with lianas and foliage. We often tried to land, 
but without success. Towards sunset we sailed along for 
an hour seeking to discover, not an opening (since none 
exists), but a spot less wooded, where our Indians by means 
of the hatchet and manual labour, could clear space enough 
for a resting-place for twelve or thirteen persons. It was 
impossible to pass the night in the canoe; the mosquitos, 
which tormented us during the day, accumulated toward 
evening beneath the toldo covered with palm-leaves, -which 
served to shelter us from the rain. Our hands and faces 
had never before been so much swelled. Father Zea, who 
had till then boasted of having in his missions of the cataracts 
the largest and fiercest (las mas feroces) mosquitos, at 
length gradually acknowledged that the sting of the insects 
of the Cassiquiare was the most painful he had ever felt. 
We experiemied great difficulty, amid a thick forest, in 
finding wood I o make a fire, the branches of the trees iq 
* Simia chiropote*. 
