[107] Nasua.
[108] The “ha-ha” is a wicker shield, with which the opponents try to push each other down.
[109] The Monouri ant is used by the Indians as one of the ingredients in preparing the deadly Wourali poison.
[110] The names of these and the other falls marked in the map were given to us by Lanceman, who claimed familiarity with all of them.
[111] In the mountainous district of Mérida—another of the States of Venezuela—the Sierra Nevada peak attains an altitude of nearly 14,000 feet above the sea.
[112] Amongst the few coleoptera that I recognised were those of the curious genus Brentus and the giant Prionus. There were also brilliant silver green Curculios, golden green and coppery Buprestidæ, steel blue Scarabœi glossed with purple, and a few specimens of Phaucus lancifer, whose golden body was tinged with green and violet.
[113] Tanagra septicolor.
[114] “Amais la libertad? pues—vivais en la campagna.”
[115] Bersimum glactodendron.
[116] Mr. Otis says: “Among the most important concessions by the terms of this contract was one guaranteeing that all public lands lying on the line of the road were to be used gratuitously by the Company, also a gift of 250,000 acres of land, to be selected by the grantees from any public lands on the Isthmus. Two ports, one on the Atlantic and the other on the Pacific (which were to be the termini of the road) were to be free ports; and the privilege was granted of establishing such tolls as the Company might think proper. The contract was to continue in force for forty-nine years, subject to the right of New Granada to take possession of the road at the expiration of twenty years after its completion, on payment of five millions of dollars; on the expiration of thirty years on payment of four millions; and at the expiration of forty years on payment of two millions. Three per cent was to be paid to the New Granada government upon all dividends declared. The entire work was to be completed within eight years.”