868 .VEGETABLE MILK. 



state, the igua, a tree resembling the Caryocar nuciferuia. 

 which is cultivated in Dutch and French Guiana, and which, 

 with the almendron of Mariquita (Caryocar amygdaliferum), 

 the juvia of the Esmeralda (Bertholletia excelsa), and the 

 Geoffrcea of the Amazon, yields the finest almonds of all 

 South America. No commercial advantage is here made 

 of the igua ; but I saw vessels arrive on the coast of Terra 

 Firma, that came from Demerara laden with the fruit of the 

 Caryocar tomentosum, which is the Pekea tuberculosa of 

 Aublet. These trees reach a hundred feet in height, and 

 present, by the beauty of their corolla, and the multitude of 

 their stamens, a magnificent appearance. I should weary 

 the reader by continuing the enumeration of the vegetable 

 wonders which these vast forests contain. Their variety 

 depends on the coexistence of such a great number of fami- 

 lies in a small space of ground, on the stimulating power of 

 light and heat, and on the perfect elaboration of the juices 

 that circulate in these gigantic plants. 



We passed the night in a hut lately abandoned by an 

 Indian family, who had left behind them their fishing- 

 tackle, pottery, nets made of the petioles of palm-trees ; in 

 short, all that composes the household furniture of that 

 careless race of men, little attached to property. A great 

 store of mani (a mixture of the resin of the moronoboea 

 and the Amyris carana) was accumulated round the house. 

 This is used by the Indians here, as at Cayenne, to pitch 

 their canoes, and fix the bony spines of the ray at the points 

 of their arrows. We found in the same place jars filled wit~j 

 a vegetable milk, which serves as a varnish, and is celebrated 

 in the missions by the name of leche para pintar* (milk for 

 painting). They coat with this viscous juice those articles 



months a produce of nine tortas. In an excellent soil, around clumps of 

 mauritia, there is every year from fifty feet square a produce of thirteen 

 or fourteen tortas. A torta weighs three quarters of a pound, and three 

 tortas cost generally in the province of Caracas one silver rial, or one- 

 eighth of a piastre. These statements appear to me to be of some 

 importance, when we wish to compare the nutritive matter which man 

 can obtain from the same extent of soil, by covering it, in different 

 climates, with bread-trees, plantains, jatropha, maize, potatoes, rice, and 

 corn. The tardiness of the harvest of jatropha has, I believe, a beneficiaJ 

 influence on the manners of the natives, by fixing them to the soil, an* 1 

 compelling them to sojourn long on the same sot 



