SUBSTITUTE FOB SALT. 365 



the solanese, the composite, the malvaceaj, the drymyrhizese, 

 and, which is still more surprising, even in the palm-trees. 



In the hut of the Indian who had been BO dangerously 

 bitten by the viper, we found balls two or three inches in 

 diameter, of an earthy and impure salt called chivi, which is 

 prepared with great care by the natives. At Maypures a 

 conferva is burnt, which is left by the Orinoco on the neigh- 

 bouring rocks, when, after high swellings, it again enters its 

 bed. At Javita a salt is fabricated by the incineration of 

 the spadix and fruit of the palm-tree seje or chimu. This 

 fine palm-tree, which abounds on the banks of the Auvana, 

 near the cataract of Gruarinumo, and between Javita and 

 the Cano Pimichin, appears to be a new species of cocoa- 

 tree. It may be recollected, that the fluid contained in the 

 fruit of the common cocoa-tree is often saline, even when 

 the tree grows far from the sea shore. At Madagascar 

 salt is extracted from the sap of a palm-tree called ciro. 

 Besides the spadix and the fruit of the seje palm, the 

 Indians of Javita lixiviate also the ashes of the famous 

 liana called cupana, which is a new species of the genus 

 paullinia, consequently a very different plant from the cu- 

 pania of Linnaeus. I may here mention, that a missionary 

 seldom travels without being provided with some prepared 

 seeds of the cupana. This preparation requires great care. 

 The Indians scrape the seeds, mix them with flour of 

 cassava, envelope trie mass in plantain leaves, and set it to 

 ferment in water, till it acquires a saffron-yellow colour. 

 This yellow paste dried in the sun, and diluted in water, is 

 taken in the morning as a kind of tea. The beverage is 

 bitter and stomachic, but it appeared to me to have a very 

 disagreeable taste. 



On the banks of the Niger, and in a great part of the in- 

 terior of Africa, where salt is extremely rare, it is said of a 

 rich man, "he is so fortunate as to eat salt at his meals." 

 This good fortune is not too common in the interior of Gui- 

 ana. The whites only, particularly the soldiers of the little 

 fort of San Carlos, know how to procure pure salt, either 

 from the coast of Caracas, or from Chita* by the Eic 



* North of Morocote, at the eastern declivity of the Cordilleia of New 

 Grenada. The salt of the coasts, which the Indians call ynquira, costi 

 two piastres the almuda at San Carlos. 



