216 THE UPPER AMAZONS. Chap. III. 



without butter, as every canoe brought one or two 

 casks on each return voyage from Para, where it is 

 imported in considerable quantity from Liverpool. We 

 obtained tea in the same way ; it being served as a 

 fashionable luxury at wedding and christening parties ; 

 the people were at first strangers to this article, for 

 they used to stew it in a saucepan, mixing it up 

 with coarse raw sugar, and stirring it with a spoon. 

 Sometimes we had milk, but this was only when a 

 cow calved ; the yield from each cow was very 

 small, and lasted only for a few weeks in each case, 

 although the pasture is good, and the animals are 

 sleek and fat. 



Fruit of the ordinary tropical sorts could generally be 

 had. I was quite surprised at the variety of the wild 

 kinds, and of the delicious flavour of some of them. 

 Many of these are utterly unknown in the regions 

 nearer the Atlantic ; being the peculiar productions 

 of this highly-favoured, and little known, interior 

 country. Some have been planted by the natives in 

 their clearings. The best was the Jabuti-puhe, or 

 tortoise-foot ; a scaled fruit probably of the Anonaceous 

 order. It is about the size of an ordinary apple ; when 

 ripe the rind is moderately thin, and encloses, with the 

 seeds, a quantity of custardy pulp of a very rich flavour. 

 Next to this stands the Cum a (Collophora sp.) of which 

 there are two species, not unlike, in appearance, small 

 round pears ; but the rind is rather hard, and con- 

 tains a gummy milk, and the pulpy part is almost as 

 delicious as that of the Jabuti-puhe. The Cuma tree is 

 of moderate height, and grows rather plentifully in the 



