422 
MCTtTEESQTTE ENCAMPMENT. 
those equatorial regions where it always mins, being so full 
of sap, that they will scarcely bum. There being no bare 
shore, it is hardly possible to procure old wood, which the 
Indians call wood baJced in the sun. However, fire was 
necessary to us only as a defence against the beasts of the 
forest; for we had such a scarcity of provision that we had 
little need of fuel for the purpose of preparing our food. 
On the 18th of May, towards evening, we discovered a 
spot where wild cacao-trees were growing on the bank of the 
river. The nut of these cacaos is small and bitter; the Indians 
of the forest suck the pulp, and throw away the nut, which 
is picked up by the Indians of the missions, and sold to 
persons who are not very nice in the preparation of their 
chocolate. “This is the Puerto del Cacao ” (Cacao Port), 
said tho pilot; “ it is here our Padres sleep, when they go to 
Esmeralda to buy sarbacans* tm&juvias (Brazil nuts). ISTot 
five boats, however, pass annually by the Cassiquiare; and 
since we left Maypures (a whole month previously), we had 
not met one living sold on tho rivers we navigated, except in 
the immediate neighbourhood of the missions. To the south 
of lake Duractumuni we slept in a forest of palm-trees. It 
rained violently, but the pothoses, arums, and lianas, fur- 
nished so thick a natural trellis, that we were sheltered as 
under a vaidt of foliage. The Indians whose hammocks 
were placed on the edge of the river, interwove the lielico- 
nias and other musaeese, so as to form a kind of roof over 
them. Our fires lighted up, to the height of fifty or sixty 
feet, the palm-trees, the lianas loaded with flowers, and the 
columns of white smoke, which ascended in a straight line 
toward the sky. The w'hole exhibited a magnificent spec- 
tacle; but to have enjoyed it fully, we should have breathed 
an air clear of insects. 
The most depressing of all physical sufferings are those 
which are uniform in their duration, and can be combated 
only by long patience. It is probable, that in the exhala- 
tions of the forests of the Cassiquiare M. Bonpland imbibed 
the seeds of a severe malady, under which lie nearly sunk on 
our arrival at Angostura. Happily for him and for me, 
nothing led us to "presage the danger with which he was 
* The bamboo tubes furnished by the Arundinaria, used for projecting 
fcne poisoned arrows of the natives. — See Views of Nature p. 180. 
