262 



SANTAREM 



picturing to myself the very different aspect this fertile 

 tract of country would wear if it were peopled by a few 

 families of agricultural settlers from Northern Europe. 



Although the meadows were unproductive ground to 

 a Naturalist, the woods on their borders teemed with life : 

 the number and variety of curious insects of all orders 

 which occurred here was quite wonderful. The belt of 

 forest was intersected by numerous pathways leading from 

 one settler's house to another. The ground was moist, 

 but the trees were not so lofty or their crowns so densely 

 packed together as in other parts ; the sun's light and heat 

 therefore had freer access to the soil, and the underwood 

 was much more diversified than in the virgin forest. I 

 never saw so many kinds of dwarf palms together as here ; 

 pretty miniature species ; some not more than five feet 

 high, and bearing little clusters of round fruit not larger 

 than a good bunch of currants. A few of the forest trees 

 had the size and strongly-branched figures of our oaks, 

 and a similar bark. One noble palm grew here in great 

 abundance, and gave a distinctive character to the district. 

 This was the CEnocarpus distichus, one of the kinds called 

 Bacaba by the natives. It grows to a heigh t of forty to 

 fifty feet. The crown is of a lustrous dark-green colour, 

 and of a singularly flattened or compressed shape ; the 

 leaves being arranged on each side in nearly the same 

 plane. When I first saw this tree on the campos, where 

 the east wind blows with great force night and day for 

 several months, I thought the shape of the crown was due 

 to the leaves being prevented from radiating equally by 

 the constant action of the breezes. But the plane of 

 growth is not always in the direction of the wind, and the 

 crown has the same shape when the tree grows in the 

 sheltered woods. The fruit of this fine palm ripens 

 towards the end of the year, and is much esteemed by the 

 natives, who manufacture a pleasant drink from it similar 

 to the assai described in a former chapter, by rubbing off 

 the coat of pulp from the nuts, and mixing it with water. 

 A bunch of fruit weighs thirty or forty pounds. The 

 beverage has a milky appearance, and an agreeable nutty 

 flavour. The tree is very diflicult to climb, on account of 

 the smoothness of its stem ; consequently the natives, 

 whenever they want a bunch of fruit for a bowl of Bacaba, 

 cut down and thus destroy a tree which has taken a score 

 or two of years to grow, in order to get at it. 



