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The rest of the party coming up with the cargadores, we had to wait until bamboo rafts could be built, the raft really being nothing but a flat bundle lashed together with bejuco. In this case our rafts were so small that under the weight of only one man and his kit they immediately became submarines, so that one got partially wet crossing. Our horses and ponies were swum over.

Neither Bontoc nor Samoki is within the zone of bejuco, from which a considerable part of their basket work is made, and, as a consequence, the raw material is bartered for from pueblos one or two days distant. Barlig furnishes most of the bejuco.

"The objects which I had seen in the tribunal guard room were made of long bamboo poles, across one end of which two short pieces had been fastened. To these cross pieces were bound a great number of the 'bejuco' vines, so arranged that the innumerable hooks which they bore could be easily swung about in the air.

This chemical operation, to which the old man attached so much importance, appeared to us extremely simple. It is the bejuco de Mavacure, which is gathered in abundance east of the mission, on the left bank of the Orinoco, beyond the Rio Amaguaca, in the mountainous and rocky tracts of Guanaya and Yumariquin.

As is brought forth later under the head of "Commerce," much basket work is done by only one or two communities, and from them passes in trade over a large area. Most of the basket work of the area is of bejuco or bamboo. There are two varieties of bamboo used in the area a'-nis and fi'-ka. A'-nis is found in the area and fi'-ka is brought in in trade from the southwest.

As this tree grows at a great distance from Esmeralda, and was at that period as destitute of flowers and fruits as the bejuco de mavacure, we could not determine it botanically.

The machine becomes a flexible, many-bladed plane. Baliwang alone makes the genuine Bontoc battle-ax. It is a strong, serviceable blade of good temper, and is hafted to a short, strong, straight wooden handle which is strengthened by a ferrule of iron or braided bejuco. The ax has a slender point opposed to the bit or cutting edge of the blade.

A native swinging bridge, made of bejuco cane, was slung across the river there for the benefit of travellers going to Porto Bello. An ambush had been laid at Barbacoas, but the Spaniards had left the place, after sweeping it as bare as Torna Munni. The land was in tillage near the huts, but the plantations were barren.

In the centre is a cabin with a convex roof, between six and seven feet high, made of strong and flexible bamboos covered with palm-leaves, and fastened together with the bejuco, the creeper I have before described. The champan we engaged, however, was of a much smaller size.

All spearheads are fastened to the wooden shaft by a short haft or tang inserted in the wood. An iron ferrule or a braided bejuco ferrule is employed to strengthen the shaft where the tang is inserted. A conical iron ferrule or cap is also placed on the butt of the shaft.