Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

152 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
anxiously scrutinised all the trees and the ground
beneath them, in the hope of meeting some edible
fruit ; but it was not the proper season, and I could
only find a single tree of a Miconia (Melastomacese)
about 20 feet high, with small insipid black berries
about the size of swan-shot. This I decided to cut
down the following day, should we be unable to get
away, and boil up the berries with about a handful
of sugar which I had still left. Neither I with my
gun nor the Indians with their blowing-canes could
meet a single living thing save toads.
At about four in the afternoon the sun shone out
among the clouds, and though the river fell not,
there seemed some chance of its abating before
morning ;
so, that all might be in readiness for this
desirable contingency, I set the Indians to work to
get out the bamboos and lianas required for the
bridges. About a quarter of a mile back from our
ranchos, and on moist rising ground, are large beds
of bamboos affording abundant materials for bridging
the Topo. The old stems are so inwoven to one
another and to adjacent trees, by means of their
arched thorny branches, that, though cut off below,
it is impossible to get them down. On this account,
stems of a year's growth are chosen ;
these
are as
tall as the older ones, but have no branches, only
'spiniform pungent branch-buds at each joint, which
must be lopped off, or they would wound the hands
and feet. About 40 feet of the stems is available
for the bridges above this ;
height they are generally
so much thinner as to be easily broken off. When
cut down and trimmed, each man drags one to the
river's brink, which is no easy task over ground
where there are so many obstructions ; and in the