VOYAGE ON THE TAPAJOS. 



313 



and monkeys that the hunter had killed. I selected a parrot for 

 supper. 



" The following day we arrived, about nightfall, at the Indian village 

 of Mandu-assu. 



" The Mahues Indians do not tattoo the body as the Mundrucus, or, 

 if they do, it is only with the juice of vegetables, which disappears after 

 four or five days. 



" Formerly, when they were enemies of the white man, they were 

 conquered and subdued by the Mundrucus. At present they live in 

 peace with their neighbors, and willingly negotiate with the whites. 



" The men are well formed, robust, and active ; the women are gen- 

 erally pretty. Less warlike than the Mundrucus, they yield willingly to 

 civilization ; they surround their neat cabins with plantations of banana 

 trees, coffee, or guarana. 



The precious and medicinal guarana plant, which the Brazilians of 

 the central provinces of Goyaz and Matto Grosso purchase with its 

 weight in gold, to use against the putrid fevers which rage at certain 

 periods of the year, is owed to the Mahues Indians. They alone know 

 how to prepare it, and entirely monopolize it. 



" The Tuchao of the Malocca, called Mandu-assu, received me with 

 cordiality, and offered me his cabin. Fatigued from the journey, and 

 finding there some birds and rare plants, I remained several days.* 



" Mandu-assu marvelled to see me carefully preserve the birds the 

 hunter killed, and the leaves of plants, or wood, that possessed medicinal 

 virtues. He never left me ; accompanied me through the forests, and 

 gave me many plants of whose properties I was ignorant. 



" Rendered still more communicative by the small presents I made 

 him, he gave me not only all the particulars I wished upon the cultiva- 

 tion and preparation of the guarana, but also answered fully all my 

 questions. 



" I left him for the Malocca of Mosse, whose chief was his relative. 

 This chief was more distant and savage than Mandu-assu, and received 

 me with suspicion. I was not discouraged, as I only went t6 induce 

 him to exchange, for some articles, his paricd, or complete apparatus 

 for taking a kind of snuff which the great people of the country fre- 

 quently use. 



" My cause, however, was not altogether lost ; my hunter, who had 

 been in a cabin of the village, took me to see a young Indian who had 

 been bitten the evening previous by a surucucurano serpent. I opened 

 the wound, bled him, and again used the volatile salts. Whilst I 

 operated, a young Indian woman, singularly beautiful, sister of the 



