Chap. II. A FOREST E AMBLE. 79 



more in diameter and ten feet in length. A rare 

 wood called Sapu-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 use- 

 ful timber are met with,, including a kind of box, which 

 I saw made into carpenters' planes ; ebony and marupa ; 

 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 

 Murure, a lofty tree which yields a yellow milk of 

 remarkable virtues, on making incisions in the bark. 

 It is called by the Portuguese Mercurio vegetal, or 

 vegetable mercury, from the cures it effects when taken 

 internally in syphilitic rheumatism. It is said to pro- 

 duce 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 cut down. 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 



