THE
PIRIJAO
PALM-TREE...
349
myself to pointing out what is imperfect, o r fatal t o h u m a nity, in their civil or religious institutions. If I have dwelt l o n g e r o n the Rock of the Ouahiba, it was to r e c o r d an affecting instance o f maternal tenderness in a race o f people so l o n g calumniated ; and because 1 t h o u g h t some benefit m i g h t accrue from publishing a fact, which 1 had from the m o n k s of San Francisco, and which proves how m u c h the system o f the missions calls for the care o f the legislator. A b o v e the mouth o f the Guasucavi we entered the Rio T e n d , the course o f which is from south t o n o r t h . Had we continued to ascend the A t a b a p o , we should have t u r n e d t o east-south-east, g o i n g farther from the banks o f the Guainia or Rio N e g r o . T h e T e m i is only eighty o r n i n e t y toises broad, but in any other c o u n t r y than Guiana it would be a considerable river. T h e country exhibits the uniform aspect of forests covering ground perfectly flat. T h e line pirijao palm, with its fruit like peaches, and a new species o f bache, or mauritia, its trunk bristled with thorns, rise amid smaller trees, the vegetation o f which appears to be retarded b y t h e c o n t i n u a n c e o f the inundations. The Mauritia aculcata is called by the Indians juria or cauvaja ; its leaves are in the form o f a fan, and they bend towards the g r o u n d . A t the centre o f every leaf, n o d o u b t from the effect o f some disease o f the parenchyma, c o n c e n t r i c circles of alternate blue and yellow appear, the yellow prevailing towards the middle. W e were singularly struck b y this a p p e a r a n c e ; the leaves, coloured like the peacock's tail, are supported by short and very thick trunks. The thorns are n o t slender and l o n g like those o f the c o r o z o and other thorny p a l m - t r e e s ; but on the contrary. veryWoody, short, ami broad at the base, like the thorns of the Hura crepitans. On the banks o f the A t a b a p o and the T e m i , this palm-tree is distributed in g r o u p s o f twelve o r fifteen stems, (dose t o g e t h e r , and looking as if they rose from the same root. T h e s e trees resemble in their appearance, form, and scarcity o f leaves, the fan-palms ami palmettos o f the Old W o r l d . W e remarked that some plants o f the juria were entirely destitute o f fruit, and others exhibited a considerable q u a n t i t y ; this circumstance seems to indicate a palm-tree of separate sexes. W h e r e v e r the R i o T e m i forms c o v e s , the forest is i n u n -