282 UPPER AMAZONS—VOYAGE TO EGA. Cuap. X. 
of reis, or about a thousand pounds sterling. The value of produce 
fluctuates much, and losses are often sustained in consequence. 
Excessively long credit is given: the system being to trust the collectors 
of produce with goods a twelvemonth in advance ; and if anything 
happens in the meantime to a customer, the debt is lost altogether. 
The articles of export from the upper river are cacao, salsaparilla, 
Brazil nuts, bast for caulking vessels (the inner bark of various species 
of Lecythidez or Brazil-nut trees), copaiiba balsam, India-rubber, salt- 
fish (piraruct), turtle-oil, mishira (potted vacca marina), and grass 
hammocks. ‘The total value of the produce annually exported from 
Ega, I calculated at from seven to eight thousand pounds sterling. 
Most of the articles are collected in the forest by the Ega people, who 
take their families and live in the woods for months at a time, during 
the proper seasons. Some of the productions, such as salsaparilla and 
balsam of copatiba, have been long ago exhausted in the neighbourhood 
of towns, at least near the banks of the rivers, the only parts that have 
yet been explored, and are now got only by more adventurous traders 
during long voyages up the branch streams. ‘The search for India- 
rubber has commenced but very lately; the tree appears to grow 
plentifully on some of the rivers, but only an insignificant fraction of 
the immense forest has yet been examined Grass hammocks are 
manufactured by the wild tribes, and purchased of them in considerable 
quantities by the salsaparilla collectors. They are knitted with simple 
rods, except the larger kinds, which are woven in clumsy wooden looms. 
The fibre of which they are made is not grass, but the young leaflets of 
certain kinds of palm trees (Astryocaryum). These are split, and the strips 
twisted into two or three-strand cord, by rolling them with the fingers 
on the naked thigh. Salt-fish and mishira are prepared by the half- 
breeds and civilised Indians, who establish fishing stations (feitorias) on 
the great sandbanks laid bare by the retreating waters, in places where 
fish, turtle, and manatee abound, and spend the whole of the dry 
season in this occupation. Turtle oil is made from the eggs of the 
large river turtle, and is one of the principal productions of the district ; 
the mode of collecting the eggs and extracting the oil will be described 
in the next chapter. 
I know several men who have been able, with ordinary sobriety and 
industry, to bring up their families very respectably, and save money at 
Ega, as collectors of the spontaneous productions of the neighbourhood. 
Each family, however, besides this trade, has its little plantation of 
mandioca, coffee, beans, water melons, tobacco, and so forth, which is 
managed almost solely by the women. Some do not take the trouble 
to clear a piece of forest for this purpose, but make use of the sloping, 
bare, earthy banks of the Solimoens, which remain uncovered by water 
during eight or nine months of the year, and consequently long 
enough to give time for the ripening of the crops of mandioca, beans, 
and so forth. The process with regard to mandioca, the bread of the 
country, is very simple. A party of women take a few bundles of 
maniva (mandioca shoots) some fine day in July or August, when 
the river has sunk some few feet, and plant them in the rich 
alluvial soil, reckoning with the utmost certainty on finding a plentiful 

