THE AMAZON dTOJTE. 895 



medicine ia very considerable. "We see by the works of 

 Clusius, that at the beginning of the Conouista, Europe 

 obtained this salutary medicament from the Mexican coast 

 of Honduras and the port of Guayaquil. The trade in zarza 

 is now more active in those ports which have interior 

 communications with the Orinoco, the Bio Negro, and the 

 Amazon. 



The trials made in several botanical gardens of Europe 

 prove that the Smilax glauca of Virginia, which it is pre- 

 tended is the S. sarsaparilla of Linnaeus, may be cultivated 

 in the open air, wherever the mean winter temperature 

 rises above six or seven degrees of the centigrade ther- 

 mometer*: but those species that possess the most active 

 virtues belong exclusively to the torrid zone, and require a 

 much higher degree of heat. In reading the works of Clu- 

 sius, it can scarcely be conceived why our writers on the 

 Materia Medica persist in considering a plant of the United 

 States as the most ancient type of the officinal species of the 

 genus smilax. 



We found in the possession of the Indians of the Rio 

 Negro some of those green stones, known by the name of 

 "Amazon stones," because the natives pretend, according to 

 an ancient tradition, that they come from the country " of the 

 women without husbands (Gougnantainsecouvma), or women 

 living alone (Aikecmbenaiw\)" We were told at San Carlos, 

 and in the neighbouring villages, that the sources of the 

 Orinoco, which we found east of the Esmeralda, and in the 

 missions of the Carony and at Angostura, that the sources 

 of the Bio Branco are the native spots of the green stones. 

 These statements confirm the report of an old soldier of the 



The winter temperature at London and Paris is 4'2 and 3'7 e ; at 

 Montpelier, 6'7 ; at Rome, 7'7. In that part of Mexico, and the Terra 

 Firrra, where we saw the most active species of the sarsaparilla growing, 

 (that which supplies the trade of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies) 

 the temperature is from twenty to twenty-six degrees. The roots of 

 another family of monocotyledons (of some cyperaceee) possess also dia- 

 phoretic and resolvent properties. The Carex arenaria, the C. hirta, 8tc. 

 furnish the German sarsaparilla of druggists. According to Clusim, 

 Europe received the first sarsaparilla from Yucatan, and the island of 

 Puna, opposite Guayaquil. 



* This word is of the Tamanac language ; these women are the toto 

 Donne of the Italian 



