Chap. YIT. TAUAEI CIGARETTES. 321 



set ofif alone in a montaria on a six hours' journey in 

 the dead of night, to warn his " compadre " of the fate 

 in store for him, and thus gave him time to fly. It was 

 a pleasing sight to notice the cordiality of feeling and 

 respect for each other shown by these two old men. 

 They used to spend hours together enjoying the cool 

 breeze, seated under a shed which overlooked the broad 

 river, and talking of old times. Joao Trinidade was 

 famous for his tobacco and Tauari cigarettes. He took 

 particular pains in preparing the Tauari, the envelope 

 of the cigarettes. It is the inner bark of a tree, which 

 separates into thin papery layers. Many trees yield it, 

 amongst them the Courataria Guianensis and the Sa- 

 pucaya nut-tree (Lecythis ollaria), both belonging to 

 the same natural order. The bark is cut in long strips, 

 of a breadth suitable for folding the tobacco ; the inner 

 portion is then separated, boiled, hammered with a 

 wooden mallet, and exposed to the air for a few hours. 

 Some kinds have a reddish colour and an astringent 

 taste, but the sort prepared by our host was of a beau- 

 tiful satiny-white hue, and perfectly tasteless. He 

 obtained sixty, eighty, and sometimes a hundred layers 

 from the same strip of bark. The best tobacco in 

 Brazil is grown in the neighbourhood of Borba, on the 

 Madeira, where the soil is a rich black loam ; but 

 tobacco of very good quality was grown by Joao Trini- 

 dade and his neighbours along this coast, on similar 

 soil. It is made up into slender rolls, an inch and a 

 half in diameter and six feet in length, tapering at 

 each end. When the leaves are gathered and partially 

 dried, layers of them, after the mid-ribs are plucked 



