SAW MILL. 



291 



him to set fire to his field after every cutting. The soil is black and 

 rich-looking, though light ; and McCulloch supposes that in such soil 

 his cane will not require replanting for twenty years. The cane is 

 planted in December, and is ready to cut in ten months. 



This is the man who, in partnership with the Brazilian, built the saw- 

 mill at Barra, which was afterwards burned down. He sawed one hun- 

 dred and thirty thousand feet the first year, but not more than half that 

 quantity the second ; in the third, by making a contract with An- 

 tonii, who was to furnish the wood and receive half the profits, he sawed 

 eighty thousand. This plank is sold in Para at forty dollars the thou- 

 sand; but the expenses of getting it there, and other charges, reduce it 

 to about twenty-eight dollars. The only wood sawed is the cedro ; not 

 that it is so valuable as other kinds, but because it is the only wood of 

 any value that floats; and thus can be brought to the mills. There are 

 no roads or means of hauling timber through the forests. McCulloch told 

 me that a young American in Para offered to join him in the erection 

 of a saw-mill, and to advance ten thousand dollars toward the enterprise. 

 He said that he now thought he was unwise to refuse it, for with that 

 sum he could have purchased a small steamer (besides building and 

 fitting the mill) with which to cruise on the river, picking up the cedros 

 and taking them to the mill. 



These are not our cedars, but a tall, branching tree, with leaves more 

 like our oak. There are two kinds — red and white ; the former of which 

 is most appreciated. Some of them grow to be of great size ; between 

 Serpa and Villa Nova we made our boat fast to one that was floating 

 on the river, which measured in length from the swell of the root to 

 that of the first branches (that is a clear, nearly cylindrical trunk) ninety- 

 three feet, and was nineteen feet in circumference just above the swell 

 of the roots, which would probably have been eight feet from the ground 

 when the tree was standing. 



McCulloch gave me some castanhas in the shell, and some roots of a 

 cane-like plant that grows in bunches, with very long, narrow leaves, and 

 bears a delicate and fragrant white flower, that is called, from its resem- 

 blance in shape to a butterfly, borboleta. 



The distance hence to the mouth of the Madeira is about thirty miles. 

 After passing the end of the long island, called Tamitari, that lies oppo- 

 site McCulloch's, we had to cross the river, which there is about two 

 miles wide. The shores are low on either hand, and well wooded with 

 apparently small trees. I always felt some anxiety in crossing so large 

 an expanse of water in such a boat as ours, where violent storms of wind 

 are of frequent occurrence. Our men, with their light paddles, could 



