TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. 



'When about the houses in the village however, or coming to 

 IfiU their water-pots or bathe in the river close to our habitation, 

 they were quite unembarrassed, being, like Eve, " naked and not 

 ashamed." Though some were too fat, most of them had 

 splendid figures, and many of them were very pretty. Before 

 daylight in the morning all were astir, and came to the river to 

 wash. It is the chilliest hour of the twenty-four, and when we 

 were wrapping our sheet or blanket more closely around us, 

 we could hear the plunges and splashings of these early bathers. 

 Rain or wind is all alike to them : their morning bath is never 

 dispensed with. 



Fish were here very scarce, and we were obliged to live 

 almost entirely on fowls, which, though very nice when well 

 roasted and with the accompaniment of ham and gravy, are 

 rather tasteless simply boiled or stewed, with no variation in 

 the cookery, and without vegetables. I had now got so 

 thoroughly into the life of this part of the country, that, like 

 everybody else here, I preferred fish to every other article of 

 food. One never tires of it ; and I must again repeat that I 

 believe there are fish here superior to any in the world. 

 Our fowls cost us about a penny each, paid in fish-hooks 

 or salt, so that they are not such expensive food as they 

 would be at home. In fact, if a person buys his hooks, 

 salt, and other things in Para, where they are about half the 

 price they are at Barra, the price of a fowl will not exceed a 

 halfpenny; and fish, pacovas, and other eatables that the 

 country produces, in the same proportion. A basket of farinha, 

 that will last one person very well a month, will cost about 

 threepence; so that with a small expenditure a man may obtain 

 enough to live on. The Indians here made their mandiocca 

 bread very differently from, and very superior to, those of the 

 adjacent rivers. The greater part is tapioca, which they mix 

 with a small quantity of the prepared mandiocca-root, and form 

 a white, gelatinous, 'granular cake, which with a little use is 

 very agreeable, and is much sought after by all the white 

 traders on the river. Farinha they scarcely ever eat themselves, 

 but make it only to sell ; and as they extract the tapioca, which 

 is the pure glutinous portion of the root, to make their own 

 bread, they mix the refuse with a little fresh mandiocca to 

 make farinha, which is thus of a very poor quality ; yet such is 

 the state of agriculture on the Rio Negro, that the city of Barra 



