344 FISHES OF WESTERN SOUTH AMERICA 
inch or so. When he has finished, the bundle has become a wide sheet of flesh, 
ready to be spread out on the drying racks. Much as in a wood-veneer the sheet 
is criss-crossed with odd grain-patterns where the myotomes and myocommata are 
cut across. (Text fig. 39.) 
Fig. 41. Deck cargo of paiche meat. The dried strips are tied in 
rolls for shipment to market. 
The dried strips of flesh are rolled into bundles and stored in the farmhouse 
ware-room until needed for domestic use or until sold. Huckstering merchants, 
mostly from Iquitos, make more or less regular trips up and down all the main 
streams by steam-‘‘launch’’, bartering trade-goods for cotton, rubber, ivory-nuts, 
dried paiche, ete., and thus the surplus supply of the fish finds its way to the city 
market. At the time of my visit, no sanitary service existed in Loreto, and no 
