Chap. III. SEASONS. 219 



do not recollect seeing cats do the same, although 

 they go voluntarily to the woods to eat Tucuma, 

 another kind of palm fruit. The tree, as it grows in 

 clusters beside the palm-thatched huts, is a noble 

 ornament, being, when full grown, from fifty to sixty 

 feet in height and often as straight as a scaffold-pole. A 

 bunch of fruit when rijDe is a load for a strong man, and 

 each tree bears several of them. The Pupunha grows 

 wild nowhere on the Amazons. It is one of those few 

 vegetable productions (including three kinds of mandioca 

 and the American species of Banana) which the Indians 

 have cultivated from time immemorial, and brought 

 with them in their original migration to Brazil. It 

 is only, however, the more advanced tribes who have 

 kept up the cultivation. The superiority of the fruit 

 on the Solimoens to that grown on the Lower Amazons 

 and in the neighbourhood of Para is very striking. At 

 Ega it is generally as large as a full-sized peach, and 

 when boiled almost as mealy as a potatoe ; whilst at 

 Para it is no bigger than a walnut, and the pulp is 

 fibrous. Bunches of sterile or seedless fruits sometimes 

 occur in both districts. It is one of the principal articles 

 of food at Ega when in season, and is boiled and eaten 

 with treacle or salt. A dozen of the seedless fruits 

 makes a good nourishing meal for a grown-up person. 

 It is the general belief that there is more nutriment in 

 Pupunha than in fish or Vacca marina. 



The seasons in the Upper Amazons region offer some 

 points of difference from those of the lower river and 

 the district of Para, which two sections. of the country 



