36 THE PiASSABA FIBRE OF COMMERCE, 



vegetation there was none — and almost the only companions of the palm 

 were scattered low trees of Hiterostemon simplicifolium, Spence, with its 

 large blue butterfly-like flowers, and another sort of tree of equally humble 

 growth, clad with numerous fresh-coloured flowers, which Mr Bentham is 

 disposed to consider a new genus of Flacourticete. To have escaped from 

 the cloud of mosquitos on the bank of the river, no doubt enhanced 

 the enjoyment. This was on the south side of the Casiquiari; but the 

 Piassaba is equally abundant north of that river, and throughout the 

 broad plain included by the Casiquiari, Orinoco, and Guainia: north of 

 the Orinoco, on the Cunucunomu, Ventuari, and Sipapo, it is apparently 

 much scarcer. 



"Of the Piassaba collected on the Casiquiari and Guainia, about half is 

 taken down to Para, and the other half to Angostura, on the Orinoco. In 

 the summer season, the Indian villages on those rivers present a very lively 

 appearance from the boat-building and rope-making which occupy their 

 inhabitants. An interesting circumstance respecting the latter branch of 

 industry came to my knowledge at San Carlos del Rio Negro, where, 

 constantly hearing an old Indian woman spoken of as 'La Ingiesa,' I 

 sought her out, and found that she had been the lawful wife of an English- 

 man, a soldier in the Royalist army, wdio, when the Republican party 

 triumphed, retired towards the frontier of Brazil, and squatted down at 

 San Carlos. I was assured by his widow, and by others of the inhabitants, 

 that this man, whom they knew only by the name of Bon Juan, first taught 

 the people to make Piassaba rope by the aid of a wheel, and, in fact, 

 established the first rope-walk in the Canton del Rio Negro. Whether this 

 were true, or whether the Portuguese at an earlier date extended this branch 

 of industry beyond the limits of their own territory, it is certain that, 

 in so much as I have yet seen of the Peruvian and Quitenian Andes, rope of 

 every kind, whether of agave, yucca, palm fibre, or of cotton, is made 

 purely by hand. 



" To Mr Wallace's interesting account of the mode of collecting the 

 Piassaba fibre I have nothing to add, save that, as in the young plants, from 

 which it is solely obtained, the beard is not always completely separated 

 into fibres, but hangs down in riband-like strips, it is necessary, before 

 cutting it off, to comb it out by means of a rude comb of two or three 

 pointed sticks or long palm-prickles. 



"Besides the use which is made of the beard of the Piassaba, the pulpy 

 envelope of the sarcocarp in the ripe fruit is said to yield the most delicious 

 of all palm drinks, bearing great resemblance to cream both in colour and 

 taste. I have not had the good fortune to taste it, or even to see the ripe 

 fruit, which comes into season at Midsummer." 



Attalea, the genus to which the Bahia palm belongs, is composed of 

 about twenty members, ten of which (.4. amygdalbia, H. & K. ; A. Butiros, 

 Lodd. ; A. Cohune, Mart. ; A. excelsa, A. funifera, Mart. ; A. Maripa, 

 Mart. ; A. speciosa, Mart. ; and A. spectabilis, Mart.) are cultivated in our 

 gardens : they are all natives of the American Continent, where they 



