TAUARI CIGARETTES 



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pression of his countenance showed him to be a superior 

 man of his class. He told me he had been intimate with 

 our host for thirty years, and that a wry word had never 

 passed between them. At the commencement of the 

 disorders of 1835 he got into the secret of a plot for 

 assassinating his friend, hatched by some villains whose 

 only cause of enmity was their owing him money and 

 envying his prosperity. It was such as these who aroused 

 the stupid and brutal animosity of the Muras against the 

 whites. The negro, on obtaining this news, set off alone 

 in a montaria on a six hours* journey in the dead of night, 

 to warn his ' compadre ' of the fate in store for him, 

 and thus gave him time to fly. It was a pleasing sight 

 to notice the cordiality of feeling and respect for each 

 other shown by these two old men. They used to spend 

 hours together enjoying the cool breeze, seated under a 

 shed which overlooked the broad river, and talking of 

 old times. Joao Trinidade was famous for his tobacco 

 and Tauari cigarettes. He took particular pains in pre- 

 paring the Tauari, the envelope of the cigarettes. It is 

 the inner bark of a tree, which separates into thin papery 

 layers. Many trees yield it, amongst them the Courataria 

 Guianensis and the Sapucaya nut-tree (Lecythis ollaria), 

 both belonging to the same natural order. The bark is 

 cut in long strips, of a breadth suitable for folding the 

 tobacco ; the inner portion is then separated, boiled, 

 hammered with a wooden mallet, and exposed to the air 

 for a few hours. Some kinds have a reddish colour and 

 an astringent taste, but the sort prepared by our host 

 was of a beautiful satiny-white hue, and perfectly taste- 

 less. He obtained sixty, eighty, and sometimes a hundred 

 layers from the same strip of bark. The best tobacco in 

 Brazil is grown in the neighbourhood of Borba, on the 

 Madeira, where the soil is a rich black loam ; but to- 

 bacco of very good quality was grown by Joao Trinidade 

 and his neighbours along this coast, on similar soil. It 

 is made up into slender rolls, an inch and a half in dia- 

 meter and six feet in length, tapering at each end. When 

 the leaves are gathered and partially dried, layers of 

 them, after the mid-ribs are plucked out, are placed on a 

 mat and rolled up into the required shape. This is done 

 by the women and children, who also manage the planting, 

 weeding, and gathering of the tobacco. The process of 

 tightening the rolls is a long and heavy task, and can be 



