Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/276

 244 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [March,

scarifying substances which act upon civilised man. The tree is one of the loftiest in the forest, but the fruit falls as soon as ripe, and its hard woody coating preserves it from injury. Baskets, shirts, trousers, etc., were soon filled with the fruit and emptied into the canoe ; and I made each of the Indians bring a small basketful for me ; so that we had " mingau de ocoki " for three succeeding mornings.

The rocks from Carurii often present a scoriaceous appear- ance, as if the granite had been remelted. Sometimes they are a mass of burnt fragments, sometimes a honeycombed rock with a shining surface. In some places there are enclosed fragments of a finer-grained rock, apparently sandstone, and numerous veins and dykes, which often cross each other in three or four sets. The rocks are, in many places, so broken and cleft vertically, as to appear stratified and thrown up on end. The rounded form and concentric arrangement, observed in the Rio Negro, is here also constantly met with. The interstices of the rounded and angular masses of rock are often filled with a curious volcanic substance, which outwardly re- sembles pitch, but consists of scoriae, sand, clays, etc., variously cemented together.

On the ioth we passed the " Tapioca," "Tucano " (Toucan), " Tucunare " (a fish), " Uaracii pinimi " (a fish), and " Tyeassu " (Pig) caxoeiras. The first was very bad, and both difficult and dangerous to pass ; it consisted of many distinct falls among huge masses of rock. At one place the canoe remained stuck fast, amidst foaming waters, on the very edge of a fall, for nearly an hour ; all the efforts of the Indians could not move it forward. They heaved it over from one side to the other, but with no effect ; till I began to despair of getting out of the difficulty before night. At last the canoe suddenly moved on, with apparently not so much force as had been before applied to it ; but my Indians, being of several nations, did not under- stand any common language, and it was impossible to get them to act in concert, or obey any leader. It was probably some chance combination of forces, that at last extricated us from our unpleasant situation. At this fall, on the rocks, were very numerous figures, or picture-writings, and I stopped to make drawings of them ; of which I had by this time a rather ex- tensive collection.

The next three falls were small rapids ; but the last, which