All day, even when rowing, Indians continually slap each other hard with the palm of the hand to scare off mosquitoes. Brusque in all their movements they continue to slap each other mechanically while they sleep. At Maypures we saw young Indians sitting in a circle, cruelly scratching each other's back with bark dried by the fire. With that patience only known in the copper-colored race, some Indian women busied themselves by digging small lumps of coagulated blood from each bite with a sharp, pointed bone. One of the wildest Orinoco tribes, the Otomacs, use mosquito nets woven from fiber from the moriche palm. In villages on the Magdalena river Indians often invited us to lie down on oxhides near the church in the middle of the plaza grande where they had herded all the cattle, as the proximity of cattle gives you some respite from bites. When Indians saw that Bonpland was unable to prepare his plants because of the plague of mosquitoes they invited him into their 'ovens' (hornitos), as they call these small spaces without doors or windows, which they slide into on their bellies through a low opening. Thanks to a fire of greenwood, which gives off plenty of smoke, they expel all the insects and then block the 'oven' door. Bonpland, with a praiseworthy courage and patience, dried hundreds of plants shut up in these Indian hornitos.