S54 



NOTES OK BRAZIL. 



from dried leaves, of considerable length, twisted together as a rope. If 

 the timber be specifically lighter than water, these rafts float down the 

 stream, and require only a little care in the direction of their course. — 

 When the wood is of the heavier kind, a canoa or even two, is introduced 

 into the centre of the Balsa, and assists in the support of the logs arranged 

 alongside. Rafts thus constructed, sometimes come down to the city ; 

 but are more frequently taken to pieces in the lower part of the rivers. 



The Iguapezu abounds also with fishes, which on many occasions, 

 are hurried away by the stream, or swim against it with difficulty. In 

 such cases, a hemispherical wicker basket is laid with its mouth towards 

 the current, by which means they are easily intercepted. — This mode 

 is borrowed from the Indians, and the basket still bears its primitive 

 name. 



The application of one of these baskets to a very different purpose, 

 by an Englishman resident here, will afford an illustration of the extreme 

 simplicity of the people. Having occasion to build an oven, he took a 

 basket for his model, and turned an arch of brick work over it, so that 

 it covered the whole internal surface, and left the oven without a mouth. 

 The observers of the process, struck with what they thought his folly, 

 eagerly enquired how and when the basket was to be extracted, and being 

 told with some little mystery, that it was to be withdrawn through the small 

 aperture left in the brick work, assembled in crowds to witness the perform- 

 ance of the feat. The builder still appearing serious and reserved, deliber- 

 ately cut away that portion of the basket, which appeared at the door of 

 the oven, put in fire, and reduced the remainder to ashes. On this 

 solution of the difficulty, the people retired amused with their own 

 simplicity, and generously applauding, according to their custom, the 

 sijperior wisdom of the British, though in this instance, not very won- 

 derfully displayed. 



The Brazilians were no strangers to the modern construction of 

 ovens ; but it is questionable whether the art of cookery has really been 

 improved by it. The South American Indians retain to this day, the 

 modes of their fathers ; cutting a hole in the perpendicular face of a dry 



