10] 
for “peach of the forest.” The flesh is said to be rich and like a 
mango, while its single seed tastes like a raw chestnut. 
All through the Beni River valley chocolate grows wild, its big, 
ribbed, pumpkin-colored pods and purple seeds often furnishing a 
traveling Indian with a refreshing nibble—for these people are like 
children—they seem to-be always eating. The great majority of 
the wild fruits are sweet, or sweet and oily; some of them have a 
flavor that reminds one forcibly of axle-grease. All the genipas 
come in this category, according to my experience. Sour fruits 
are not generally appreciated by the natives for any purpose except 
for sugared cooling drinks, such as limeade and “ tamarindo.” 
“Tt is good to eat, it is sweet, sefior!”’ is the usual answer to a 
question as to a fruit’s fitness for food. I told them about our 
grapefruit and they asked me why we planted it, since it was both 
bitter and sour. A fruit common about Rurrenabaque is the 
“bibi,”’ a berry fruit with a single seed the size of a rice grain 
and with a flavor like wintergreen candy. Delicious! Ask the 
native children, who first called my attention to it! Another fruit 
much relished by the natives grows on a gorgeous blue-flowered 
tree, related to our verbenas, and the fruit, both as to size, shape, 
and flavor, reminds one of olives. In fact, the native name 
“aceitunilla”’ means “ little olive.” 
From some standpoints this frontier is much blessed in the 
character of its plants, for no poison ivy or similar plant annoyer 
mars a walk through the undergrowth, except the palo santo tree 
with its stinging ants. And around these trees there is usually a 
small cleared space that warns one. The forests and pampas are 
full of valuable economic plants, so valuable to the native that he 
is able to satisfy most of his needs in the way of rope, soap, food, 
transportation, fuel, medicine, building material, and even jewelry 
and cigarette paper from the surrounding forest. For this is the 
native land of quinine, sarsaparilla, sululu, chicle of some types 
(the basis of chewing gum), rubber, Brazil nuts, copaiba, arnotto 
(our butter-color dye), indigo, tree cotton, kapok, and hosts of 
other raw products. 
The Indian makes his bows from the black, tough-wooded 
chonta palm, and the string from the inner bark of a Bombacaceous 
tree. His arrows are pointed with this same bow wood; shafted 
