344
MISSION OF SAN BALTHASAR.
vegetation surprised us the more, as we had till then seen on the banks of the Atabapo only small trees with slender trunks, which from afar resembled y o u n g cherry-trees. T h e Indians assured that these small trees do n o t form a v e r y extensive g r o u p . T h e y are c h e c k e d in their g r o w t h b y t h e inundations o f the r i v e r ; while the dry g r o u n d s near the Atabapo, the T e m i , and the Tuamini, furnish excellent timber for building. These forests do not stretch indefinitely t o t h e east and west, toward the Cassiquiare and the G u a v i a r e ; they are bounded by the open savannahs o f M a nuteso, and the Rio Inirida. W e found it difficult in the evening to stem the current, and we passed the night in a wood a little above Mondaxari ; which is a not her granitic rock traversed by a stratum o f quartz. We found in it a g r o u p o f fine crystals o f black schorl. O n the 29th, the air was cooler. W e had no zancudos, but the sky was constantly clouded. and without stars. 1 began to regret the Lower O r i n o c o . W e st ill advanced but slowly from the force o f the current, and we stopped a great part o f the day to seek for plants. It was night when we arrived at the mission of San Balthasar, or, as the monks style it, the mission of In divina Pastora de Balthasar de Atabapo. W e were lodged with a Catalonian missionary, a lively and agreeable man, who displayed in these wild countries the activity that characterises his nation. He had planted a garden, where the Fig-tree o f Europe was found in c o m p a n y with the persea, and the lemon-tree with the mammee. T h e village was built with that regularity which, in the north o f G e r m a n y , and in protestant America, we find in the hamlets o f the Moravian brethren ; and the Indian plantations seemed better cultivated than elsewhere. Here we saw for the first time that white and fungous substance which I have made known by the name of dapicho and zapis.* W e immediately perceived that it was analogous to i n d i a - r u b b e r ; but, as the Indians made us understand by signs, that it was found u n d e r g r o u n d , we were inclined to think, till we arrived at the mission o f Javita, that the dapicho was a fossil c a o u t c h o u c , though different from the elastic bitumen o f D e r b y shire. A Poimisano Indian, seated by the fire in the hut o f * These two words belong to the Poimisano and Paragini tongues.