176 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
showing me the various processes to which the Mandioca 
is subjected. This plant is invaluable to these people. It 
gives them their farinha, a coarse kind of flour, their only 
substitute for bread,- -their tapioca, and also a kind of 
fermented juice called tucupi, a more questionable bless- 
ing, perhaps, since it affords them the means of getting 
intoxicated. After being peeled, the roots of the mandioca 
are scraped on a very coarse grater ; in this condition they 
make a moist kind of paste, which is then packed in elastic 
straw tubes, made of the fibres of the Jacitara Palm (Des- 
monchus). When her tube, which has always a loop at 
either end, is full, the Indian woman hangs it on the 
branch of a tree ; she then passes a pole through the lower 
loop and into a hole in the trunk of the tree, and, sitting 
down on the other end of the pole, she thus transforms it 
into a primitive kind of lever, drawing out the tube to its 
utmost length by the pressure of her own weight. The 
juice is thus expressed, flowing into a bowl placed under 
the tube. This juice is poisonous at first, but after being 
fermented becomes quite harmless, and is then used for 
the tucupi. The tapioca is made by mixing the grated 
mandioca with water. It is then pressed on a sieve, and 
the fluid which flows out is left to stand. It soon makes 
a deposit like starch, and when hardened they make it 
into a kind of porridge. It is a favorite article of food 
with them. 
August SQtJi. As time goes on, we grow more at home 
with our rustic friends here, and begin to understand their 
relations to each other. The name of our host is Laudi- 
gari (I spell the name as it sounds), and that of his wife 
Esperaii9a. He, like all the Indians living upon the Ama- 
zons, is a fisherman, and, with the exception of such little 
