208 THE UPPER AMAZONS. Chap. III. 



The trade of Ega, like that of all places on the Upper 

 Amazons, consists in the collecting of the produce of 

 the forests and waters, and exchanging it for European 

 and North American goods. About a dozen large 

 vessels, schooners and cubertas, owned by the merchants 

 of the place, are employed in the traffic. Only one 

 voyage a year is made to Para, which occupies from four 

 to five months, and is arranged so that the vessels shall 

 return before the height of the dry season, when they 

 are sent with assortments of goods ; cloth, hardware, 

 salt, and a few luxuries, such as biscuits, wine, &c, to 

 the fishing stations, to buy up produce for the next trip 

 to the capital. Although large profits are apparently 

 made both ways, the retail prices of European wares 

 being from 40 to 80 per cent, higher, and the net prices 

 of produce to the same degree lower, than those of 

 Para, the traders do not get rich very rapidly. An old 

 Portuguese who had traded with success at Ega for 

 thirty years was reputed rich when he died : his 

 savings then amounting to nine contos of reis, or about 

 a thousand pounds sterling. The value of produce 

 fluctuates much, and losses are often sustained in con- 

 sequence. 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 Lecythidese or Brazil-nut 

 trees), copauba balsam, India-rubber, salt-fish (pirarucu), 

 turtle-oil, mishira (potted vacca marina), and grass ham- 





