420 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



thirty-six hours. The same result occurs when the juice is boiled. 

 When distilled, it furnishes a most poisonous liquid ; a few drops 

 placed on the tongue of a dog are sufficient to kill him in ten 

 minutes. 



" The name manipuera is given to the liquid resulting from 

 squeezing the scraped root, which latter is placed in the tepiti (a 

 kind of basket or vessel made of taqua russii, or split and plaited 

 taqua.) Notwithstanding its being so poisonous, the juice is 

 employed for preparing tucupi — a sauce much used in Para, 

 Amazonas, and Maranhao. To prepare it, the liquid is boiled 

 with hot peppers and garlic, or else these ingredients are merely 

 macerated, and then exposed to the air and night dews. 



" When the tuber is macerated and placed in water till it begins 

 to ferment, it loses its poisonous properties, and, after being washed 

 in several waters, it is used to make cakes. 



" The name mandioca is given to the root, and maniva generally 

 to the plant, of which there are many species." * 



Black beans, the feijoes (singular feijdd) to which I refer 

 repeatedly, is Phaseolus vulgaris. When stewed in toucinho (lard), 

 they form, with farinha, the staple food of the inhabitants. Another 

 favourite dish is the feijoada, a stew of meat and black beans, 

 which is also freely covered with farinha and made into a kind of 

 thick mess — most unpleasant to look at, but excellent. A feijoada 

 is one of the standing dishes at all the meals of his Majesty the 

 Emperor. When at Rio de Janeiro, I was told of a great dinner 

 given at Paris on the occasion of a national fite by the Bra- 

 zilian Minister to the Brazilian residents in that city. The dinner 

 was to be au Brksilien. Dish after dish made its appearance, but 

 no feijoada. The guests were annoyed, and the host sent for the 



* " Diccionario de Botanica Brasileira, '' de Joaquim de Almeida Pinto. 



Mr. H. W. Bates states ("The Naturalist on the Amazons," vol. i. p. 194, 

 note) that " many useful vegetable products have been reclaimed, and it is to 

 the credit of the Indians that they have discovered the use of the mandioc 

 plant, which is highly poisonous in the x'xvi state, and requires a long prepara- 

 tion to fit it for use. It is cultivated throughout the whole of Tropical America 

 ... but only in the plains, not being seen, according to Humboldt, higher than 

 from six hundred to eight hundred metres, at which elevation it grows on the 

 Mexican Andes. I believe it is not known in what region the plant originated ; 

 it is not found wild in the Amazons valley." 



