Cuap. IX. ALTAR DO CHAO, 219 
S4pu-pira, of excessively hard texture, deep brown in colour, thickly 
speckled with yellow, is also a product of these forests. Captain 
Thomas showed me a mortar, four feet high, for pounding coffee, made 
of it. Many other kinds of ornamental and useful timber are met with, 
including a kind of box, which I saw made into carpenters’ planes ; 
ebony and marup4; the last-mentioned a light whitish wood of the 
same texture as mahogany. Although the trees have been felled near 
the village, more of the same kinds are said to exist in the forest, which 
extends to an unknown distance in the interior. I heard here, also, 
of the Mururé, a lofty tree which yields a yellow milk of remarkable 
virtues, on making incisions in the bark. Itis called by the Portuguese 
Mercurio vegetal, or vegetable mercury, from the cures it effects when 
taken internally in syphilitic rheumatism. It is said to produce terrible 
pains in the limbs soon after it is taken, but the cure is certain. I was 
never able to get a sight of this tree. Captain Thomas said that the 
only specimen he knew of it, had been cutdown. Persons in Santarem 
had attempted to send samples of the milk to Europe for experiment, 
but they had failed on account of the stone bottles in which it was 
contained always bursting in transit. 
We walked two or three miles along this dark and silent forest road, 
and then struck off through the thicket to another path running parallel 
to it, by which we returned to the village. About half way we passed 
through a tract of wood, densely overgrown with the Curua palm tree ; 
the natives calla place of this kind a Pindobal. The rigid, elegantly 
pinnated leaves, twenty feet in length, grow, as I have before described, 
directly out of the ground. I had frequently occasion to notice in the 
virgin forests some one kind of palm, growing abundantly in society in 
one limited tract although scarce elsewhere, no difference of soil, alti- 
tude, or humidity being apparent to account for the phenomenon. The 
Pindobal covered an area of probably four or five acres, and the whole 
lay under the shade of the tall forest trees. The last half mile of our 
road led through a more humid part of the forest near the low shores 
of the lake. We here saw a Couxio monkey (Pithecia satanas), a large 
black species which, as I have before mentioned, has a thick cap of 
hair on the head parted at the crown. He was seated alone on a 
branch fingering a cluster of flowers that lay within his reach. My 
companion fired at him, but missed, and he then slowly moved away. 
The borders of the path were enlivened with troops of small and 
delicate butterflies. I succeeded in capturing, in about half an hour, 
no less than eight species of one genus, Mesosemia ; a group remarkable 
for having the wings ornamented with central eye-like spots encircled by 
fine black and gray concentric lines arranged in different patterns 
according to the species. 
I was so much pleased with the situaticn of this settlement, and the 
number of rare birds and insects which tenanted the forest, that I 
revisited it in the following year, and spent four months making 
collections. The village itself is a neglected, poverty-stricken place ; 
the governor (Captain of Trabalhadores or Indian workmen) being an 
old, apathetic half-breed, who had spent all his life here. The priest 
