BAH I A. 10 



o 



weighted with stones. The cassava was thus left in the press 

 for twelve hours, in order that the poisonous juice which it 

 contains should be expressed. The meal was then taken out and 

 dried on a smooth stone surface, beneath which a wood fire was 

 burning. 



The resulting chalky- white meal, when sifted, yields samples 

 of three degrees of fineness. The finest, a white flour-like 

 powder, is tapioca, i.e., true, original tapioca, an imitation of 

 which, made from potato starch, is commonly sold in England. 

 The intermediate sample is used in starching clothes and in 

 cooking; and the coarsest substance, which is coarser than 

 oatmeal, and consists of irregularly-shaped dried chips of the 

 roots, is called farinha, and is, as before described, commonly 

 eaten with gravy at dinner, taking the place of bread, and 

 forming a staple article of food. 



Our host was well to do, having thrived best of all the 

 emigrants who came out w r ith him, and, having no family to pro- 

 vide for, talked of going home soon. An old German was 

 staying in the house, an idler, whose real occupation was 

 gardening, his father having been Imperial gardener, as he 

 informed us with great pride. He had landed, more than twenty 

 years before, at Eio, and had reached Bahia on foot. He was 

 now travelling from estate to estate, and staying at each as long 

 as he could, under pretence of doing up the garden, but although 

 he had been two months at the farm, the few square yards of 

 garden were as yet untouched. 



He had been too lazy to learn Portuguese, and understood 

 very little. He did a little trade in the way of peddling books. 

 He seemed, however, a favourite at the farm, and was well taken 

 care of, tea being made as a special luxury for him, and he had 

 many stories to tell, and quaint sayings, and had amusingly 

 strong Prussian sympathies. 



The farmer guided us to a large tract of primitive forest close 

 by, which was extremely difficult to penetrate. Here I caught a 

 curious bat (Saccopteryx canina). This bat has remarkable 

 glandular pouches on the under sides of the wings, at the elbow- 

 joints ; these pouches are well developed only in the males, 

 rudimentary in the females, and secrete a red-coloured strongly- 



