Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/131

 I stayed at the sitio of Joaõ Aracú until the 19th, and again, in descending, spent fourteen days at the same place. The situation was most favourable for collecting the natural products of the district. The forest was not crowded with underwood, and pathways led through it for many miles and in various directions. I could make no use here of our two men as hunters, so, to keep them employed whilst José and I worked daily in the woods, I set them to make a montaria under Joaõ Aracú's directions. The first day a suitable tree was found for the shell of the boat, of the kind called Itaüba amarello, the yellow variety of the stone-wood. They felled it, and shaped out of the trunk a log nineteen feet in length: this they dragged from the forest, with the help of my host's men, over a road they had previously made with pieces of round wood to act as rollers. The distance was about half a mile, and the ropes used for drawing the heavy load were tough lianas cut from the surrounding trees. This part of the work occupied about a week: the log had then to be hollowed out, which was done with strong chisels through a slit made down the whole length. The heavy portion of the task being then completed, nothing remained but to widen the opening, fit two planks for the sides and the same number of semicircular boards for the ends, make the benches, and caulk the seams.

The expanding of the log thus hollowed out is a critical operation, and not always successful, many a good shell being spoilt by its splitting or expanding irregularly. It is first reared on tressels, with the slit downwards, over a large fire, which is kept up for seven or