BRAZIL-NUTS. 183 



if the latter be employed, it is washed out. Shoes and 

 models of birds and fishes are readily made ; but the com- 

 mon form in which the seringa is prepared for commerce 

 is in long sheets or oval pieces, made by using a paddle- 

 shaped mould. For a day or two, vrhile the substance re- 

 mains soft, it readily receives impressions, and fanciful 

 figures are often neatly traced upon it. The tree yields 

 its gum equally well at all times, but the dry season, or 

 what corresponds to such upon the Rio Negro, the months 

 during which the least rain falls, is generally devoted to 

 the manufacture of the rubber. 



Besides the large production of seringa by the inhabi- 

 tants of the Rio Negro, great quantities of sarsaparilla — 

 the root of a vine found principally along the tributaries 

 of the river — and Brazil-nuts, are annually collected. The 

 last mentioned is the fruit of the Bertholletia excelsa, one 

 of the noblest monarchs of the forest. Monkeys, in their 

 perambulations for the wild fruits of the forest, pass these 

 by, as no ingenuity of theirs will gain them access to the 

 nuts, which are enclosed in a hard, ligneous shell, that the 

 natives break open with an axe. The tree requires about 

 eighteen months for the complete maturing of its fruit 

 from the bud. "The fruits, which are nearly as hard and 

 heavy as cannon-balls, fall with tremendous force from the 

 height of a hundred feet, crashing through the branches 

 and undergrowth, and snapping ofi" large boughs which 

 they happen to strike against. Persons are sometimes 

 killed by them, and accidents are not unfrequcnt among 

 the Indians engaged in gathering them." — ( Wallace.) 



Christmas brought us remembrances of home, and, as 

 we partook of a simple fare, our thoughts naturally re- 

 curred to the happy gatherings and joyous festivities 

 which mark the day in our own distant land. It was sun- 

 set when we left the island where we had tarried for our 

 meal, and, pushing out into the current, started upon our 



