254 
DR. SCHOMBURGK’S RESEARCHES IN GUIANA. 
saw; indeed the fertility of the soil was astonishing, although the height was 
between 2,300 and 2,500 feet above the plain. The darker coloured Banana, 
so much esteemed at the colony for culinary purposes, grew to perfection. On 
the next morning we again pursued our journey over hill and dale. We passed a 
Maran-tree ( Copaifera officinalis.') It is a lofty tree witli light-grey bark, a fine 
branching head, and pinnated leaves. The Indians cut a semi-circular hole 
towards the bottom of the trunk to the very heart of the tree. At certain 
seasons of the year, chiefly February and March, the balsam flows abundantly, 
and fills the hole in the course of the day; next morning it is put into calabashes, 
and forms an article of barter. We found a large quantity in the hole ; it was of 
a yellowish colour, and quite clear. The Indians eagerly anointed their bodies 
and hair with it. 
Our guides stopped at a glen near a spring, and going to one of the ligneous 
twiners which wound themselves like Snakes from tree to tree, they called out 
“ Ourari’’ the name of the plant in Warpeshana. The Ourari ( Strychnos loxifera , 
H. B.) is a ligneous twiner; its stems often more than three inches thick, and 
very crooked; its bark rough, and of a dark greyish colour; the branches thin and 
inclined to climbing; the leaves dark green and opposite, oval, acute, five-nerved, 
and veined ; young branches and leaves hirsute; hair brown, cirrhiferous, but not 
peculiar to every branch ; fruit of the size of a large apple, round, smooth, bluish- 
green ; seeds imbedded in a pulp, and consist chiefly of a gummy matter which is 
intensely bitter.* We observed many heaps of the cut wood covered with Palm- 
trees, which, as the Indians told us, had been left by the Macoosies. The plant 
grows only in two or three places, which are resorted to by the Indians from all 
directions, and often from a great distance. 
We descended next morning to the savannahs, where preparations were made 
to leave the following day for the encampment. Several groups of trees which 
during the dry season rise like oases out of the savannah, form during the inunda¬ 
tion small islands. The groups or inlets consist of accumulated Sand mixed with 
vegetable earth ; the drift matter of the currents during the inundation. The soil 
being richer than the adjoining arid savannahs, some seeds may have sprung up . 
they survived the first overflowings, became able to withstand the force of the 
currents, and assisted to form a larger accumulation of detritus and seeds. These 
hillocks, scarcely raised more than ten or twelve feet above the savannahs, have 
their peculiar Flora: The Inga unguis Cacti , several Cassice , large Cacti , which 
raise their limbs like gigantic candelabras, and a species of night-blooming Cereus 
* A much fuller description of this plant, with drawings, &c., and the mode of preparing the 
poison (for the first time sent to this country) has been transmitted by Dr. Schomburgk to the 
Linnsean Society.—H. B. 
