210 THE UPPER AMAZONS. Chap. III. 



tions of the district ; the mode of collecting the eggs 

 and extracting the oil will be described in the next 

 chajiter. 



I know several men who have been able, with ordi- 

 nary 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 Soli- 

 moens, 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 re- 

 gard 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 crop when they 

 return in January or February. The regular planta- 

 tions are all situated some distance from Ega, and across 

 the water, nothing being safe on the mainland near the 

 town on account of the cattle, some hundred head of 

 which are kept grazing in the streets by the townsfolk. 

 Every morning, soon after daybreak, the women are 

 seen paddling off in montarias to their daily labours 

 in these rogas or clearings ; the mistresses of house- 





