1 68
TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO.
[February,
and wanted birds, insects, and other animals; and then he began to comprehend, and at last promised to send me some men the day after the next, to carry over my luggage. _ I accordingly turned back without going to the village, which was still nearly a mile off.
On my return to Pimichin I found that my Indians had had but little success in fishing, three or four small perch being all we could muster for supper. As we had the next day to spare, I sent them early to get some "timbo" to poison the water, and thus obtain some more fish. While they were gone, I amused myself with walking about the village, and taking notes of its peculiarities. Hanging up under the eaves of our shed was a dried head of a snake, which had been killed a short time before. It was a jararaca, a species of Cras- pedocephalus, and must have been of a formidable size, for its poison-fangs, four in number, were nearly an inch long. My friend the deserter informed me that there were plenty like it in the mass of weeds close to the house, and that at night they came out, so that it was necessary to keep a sharp watch in and about the house. The bite of such a one as this would be certain death.
At Tdmo I had observed signs of stratified upheaved rocks close to the village. Here the flat granite pavement presented a curious appearance : it contained, imbedded in it, fragments of rock, of an angular shape, of sandstone crystallized and stratified, and of quartz. Up to Sao Carlos I had constantly registered the boiling-point of water with an accurate ther- mometer, made for the purpose, in order to ascertain the height above the level of the sea. There I had unfortunately broken it, before arriving at this most interesting point, the watershed between the Amazon and the Orinooko. I am, however, inclined to think that the height given by Humboldt for Sao Carlos is too great. He himself says it is doubtful, as his barometer had got an air-bubble in it, and was emptied and re- filled by him, and before returning to the coast was broken, so as to render a comparison of its indications impossible. Under these circumstances, I think little weight can be attached to the observations. He gives, however, eight hundred and twelve feet as the height of Sao Carlos above the sea. My observations made a difference of 0*5° of Fahrenheit in the temperature of boiling water between Barra and Sao Carlos, which would give
