SARSAPARILLA OF THE MUNDRUCUS. 29 



If the mother root be not dug out with the tendrils — which seldom if 

 ever happens, as the improvident collectors think not of to-morrow, the 

 day's sufficiency being to them all they require— it will rapidly yield a 

 new crop of shoots ; thus it might become exceedingly abundant. After 

 gathering as much root as they can carry home with them, they return 

 with their product to the malocca, or receiving-house. In this its fresh 

 state, it is very heavy, arising from the quantity of sap it contains, and 

 from the mud that adheres to it. 



At this the primary mart sarsaparilla obtains its price. A bundle is 

 bartered for about four . dollars' worth of various commodities, such as 

 iron tools and articles of warfare ; but they more often exchange the pro- 

 duct of their labour for ornamental gewgaws, as beads, ribbons, coloured 

 prints, fee — articles greatly admired and coveted by most savage races. 

 The cost at first hand may be estimated at sixpence a pound; for the 

 Mundrucu is very careful about washing a material that has cost his wife 

 and children so much difficulty in gathering, and he well knows that 

 his sarsaparilla is of the best kind and much sought after in the medical 

 market. - 



The radix sarsse that enters into commerce is the product of a 

 variety of species of plants, most of them of the genus Smilax; but 

 great quantities of the genera Carex and Herreria are imported and 

 sold for this root, the resemblance to each other being very close. The 

 Smilax grows abundantly throughout the whole torrid zone in America, 

 Asia, and Africa; and it is also collected outside the tropics many 

 degrees — as is the case in Virginia and on the whole banks of the Missis- 

 sippi, and also on the warm, humid peat-lands of Australia. The best 

 sarsaparilla, however, is that which grows in tropical countries, in warm 

 and moist situations, and where the land is light and mossy. These con- 

 ditions are necessary to enrich the virtue of the sap, and render it a 

 valuable medicinal agent. 



As stated above, the number of kinds that furnish us with what is 

 called sarsaparilla are of great variety, are brought from all parts of the 

 world, and are equally varied in respect to excellence of quality. Many 

 species seem worse than valueless, inasmuch as they injure the reputation 

 of a good article; and, for this reason, manufacturers of the various- pre- 

 parations of sarsaparilla should use careful selection in the quality they 

 purchase. As a matter of course, like all other articles, either of food, 

 clothing, or medicine, the best kinds are the most valuable, because 

 they are the scarcest ; as, in this instance, the best sarsaparilla can only be 

 obtained in situations both difficult of access — from the unhealthy climate,* 

 and dangers of exploration — from the savagery of the natives on whose 



* The climate of the Mundrucu, although one of the most unhealthy in all the 

 Amazon region, on account of its great heat and humidity, is for that very reason 

 one of the most fertile. Nearly all those tropical vegetable products which 

 characterise the exports of Brazil can be produced in greatest luxuriousness on the 

 Mundrucu soil ; but it is only those that thrive naturally, and which are the easiest 

 to collect, which merit his absent and careless attention. 



