212 JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE 
parture a number of Indians residing on the river went to the herds- 
man's house in a body, and expostulated with his wife in the most 
angry manner, for her thus revealing to a stranger the source of their 
support in times of scarcity. ‘The people of the Barra," said they, 
* will cross the river to search for this root in our matos, and will 
speedily eradicate it. The Commandante, too, having heard of the 
narrow escape of this family in the mouth of the river, will send to 
forbid our making further use of such dangerous food." Their alarm 
was as great, and equally as well-founded, as that of a trader up the 
Rio Negro, from whom Dr. Natterer procured seeds of salsaparilha. 
“I considered to myself," said the man afterwards to Senhor Hen- 
rique, ** what a fatal blow would be struck to our trade in Salsa if this 
foreigner should succeed in getting the seeds to grow in his country, 
where whole plantations would speedily be made of it: I therefore 
boiled them before I gave them to him!” I do not suppose Dr. Nat- 
terer ever learnt how it was that his seeds had lost their vitality. 
On the Janauari I saw a small plantation of Ipadá, a shrub of which 
the powdered leaves are chewed by the Indians throughout the Rio 
Negro. I found it to be (as I had expected) the Hrythroxylon Coca. 
The Ipadi-powder is prepared in this way :—the leaves are pulled 
separately off the branches, roasted, and pounded in a mortar made of 
the trunk of the Popunha Palm, from six to nine spans in length, the 
root of the palm being left on for the bottom, and the soft inside 
scooped out. It is made of this excessive length on account of the 
impalpable nature of the powder, which would otherwise fly up and 
choke the operator; and it is buried a sufficient depth in the ground to 
allow a person to work it with ease. The pestle is made of any hard 
wood. When the leaves are sufficiently pounded, the powder is taken 
out of the mortar with a small cuya fastened to the end of an arrow. 
A small quantity of tapioca is then mixed with it to give it consistency, 
and it is usual to add pounded ashes of Imbatiba (Cecropia peltata, 
etc.), probably on account of their saline properties. With a chew of 
Ipadá in his cheek an Indian will go two or three days without food, 
and without feeling any desire to sleep. I send you the powdered 
Ipadá, and flowering specimens of the plant. I wished also to send 
you the mortar used in preparing it, but no sum of money can purchase 
one. I find the greatest difficulty in inducing the Indians to part with 
many things of their own manufacture, the reason being that it would 
