COMMERCE. 



187 



Estimate of expenses and returns of an expedition from Nauta to the 

 Ucayali for the collection of sarsaparilla. (The expedition will occupy 

 four months of time.) 



Dr. Hire of two garreteas, that will carry seventy-five arrobas 



each, at 3-J cents per day, (four months) - - - $7 50 



Eighteen peons from Nauta to Sarayacu, at ten yards of 



English cotton cloth each, (twenty-five cents) - - 45 00 



Support of these peons for twenty days, at 3-J- cents per 



man per day 11 25 



Contract with fifty Pirros or Conibos Indians (who now 

 take the boats and go up the tributaries of the Ucayali) 

 for the delivery by each man of three arrobas of sarsa- 

 parilla, at 75 cents the arroba - - - - -11250 



Hire and support of peons for the return from Sarayacu 

 to Nauta — being one-third of the amount for the 

 trip up 18 75 



195 00 



Or. One hundred and fifty arrobas, worth in Nauta two dollars 



the arroba 300 00 



Profit in four months - - - - -10500 

 or about thirteen and a half per cent, per month. 



The people engaged in this occupation make, however, more profit, 

 by cheating the Indians in every possible mode. They also own the 

 garreteas ; and, by management, support their peons for less than three- 

 cents per day. 



This is an estimate made up from information given by Arebalo. 

 Hacket makes a much better business of it. He says, " Eighty working 

 hours above Sarayacu, on the Ucayali, is the mouth of the river 

 Aguaytia, on the banks of which grows sarsaparilla in sufficient quantity 

 not only to enrich the province of Mainas, but all the department of 

 Amazonas. Its cost is eight varas of tocuyo the hundred pounds, un- 

 dertaking the work of gathering it with formality — that is to say, em- 

 ploying one hundred persons under the direction of a man of talent, and 

 paying them a monthly salary of twenty-four varas of tocuyo each; 

 quadruple the price that is generally paid in Mainas. 



" It sells in Nauta, Peruate, and Loreto for nine dollars the hundred 

 pounds, gold or silver coin ; in Tabatinga, (frontier of Brazil,) for ten 

 dollars and fifty cents ; in Para, for twenty-five dollars ; and in Europe, 

 for from forty to sixty dollars, in times of greatest abundance/' 



