286 UPPER AMAZONS—VOYAGE TO EGA. Cuap. X. 
similar in colour and appearance to the cherry, but of oblong shape. 
The tree is one of the loftiest in the forest, and has never, I believe, 
been selected for cultivation. To get at the fruit the natives are obliged 
to climb the height of about a hundred feet, and cut off the heavily 
laden branches. I have already mentioned the Umari and the Wisht: 
both these are now cultivated. The fatty, bitter pulp which surrounds 
the large stony seeds of these fruits is eaten mixed with farinha, and 
is very nourishing. Another cultivated fruit is the Puruma (Puruma 
cecropifolia, Martius), and a round juicy berry, growing in large bunches 
and resembling grapes in taste. The tree is deceptively like a Cecropia 
in the shape of its foliage. Another smaller kind, called Purumd i, 
grows wild in the forest close to Ega, and has not yet been planted. 
The most singular of all these fruits is the Uiki, which is of oblong 
shape, and grows apparently crosswise on the 
end of its stalk. When ripe, the thick green 
rind opens by a natural cleft across the middle, 
and discloses an oval seed the size of a Dama- 
scene plum, but of a vivid crimson colour. This 
bright hue belongs to a thin coating of pulp, 
which, when the seeds are mixed ina plate of 
stewed bananas, gives to the mess a pleasant rosy 
Vik: : tint, and a rich creamy taste and consistence. 
iki Fruit. : : 
Mingau (porridge) of bananas flavoured and 
coloured with Uiki is a favourite dish at Ega. The fruit, like most of 
the others here mentioned, ripens in January. Many smaller fruits, such 
as Wajurt (probably a species of Achras), the size of a gooseberry, 
which grows singly and contains a sweet gelatinous pulp, enclosing two 
large shining black seeds; Cashipari-arapad, an oblong scarlet berry ; 
two kinds of Bacuri, the Bacuri-sitima and the B. curta, sour fruits of 
a bright lemon colour when ripe, and a great number of others, are of 
less importance as articles of food. 
The celebrated “Peach palm,” Pupunha of the Tupi nations 
(Guilielma speciosa), is a common tree at Ega. The name, I suppose, 
is in allusion to the colour of the fruit, and not to its flavour, for it is 
dry and mealy, and in taste may be compared to a mixture of chestnuts 
and cheese. Vultures devour it eagerly, and come in quarrelsome flocks 
to the trees when it is ripe. Dogs will also eat it: I do not recollect 
seeing cats do the same, although they go voluntarily to the woods to 
eat Tucuma, another kind of palm fruit. The tree, as it grows in clusters 
beside the palm-thatched huts, is a noble ornament, being, when full- 
grown, from fifty to sixty feet in height, and often as straight as a 
scaffold-pole. A bunch of fruit when ripe is a load for a strong man, 
and each tree bears several of them. The Pupunha grows wild nowhere 
on the Amazons. It is one of those few vegetable productions (includ- 
ing three kinds of mandioca and the American species of banana) which 
the Indians have cultivated from time immemorial, and brought with 
them in their original migration to Brazil. It is only, however, the 
more advanced tribes who have kept up the cultivation. The superiority 
of the fruit on the Solimoens to that grown on the Lower Amazons, and 
in the neighbourhood of Pard, is very striking. At Ega it is generally 

