CR.VI VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 185 
to the proper preparation of india-rubber. A stout 
liana is wound round the trunk of each Seringa 
tree, beginning at the base and extending upwards 
about as high as a man can reach, and making in 
this space two or three turns. It supports a narrow 
channel made of clay, down which the milk flows as 
it distils from the wounded bark, and is received 
into a small calabash deposited at the base. Early 
in the morning a man starts off into the forest, 
taking with him a tercado and a large calabash 
(called a cuyamboca) suspended by a liana handle 
so as to form a sort of pail, and visits in succession 
every Seringa tree. With his tercado he makes 
sundry slight gashes in the bark of each tree, and 
returning to the same in about an hour, he finds 
a quantity of milk in the calabash at its foot, which 
he transfers to his cuyamboca. The milk being 
collected and put into large shallow earthenware 
pans, other operators have meanwhile been filling 
tall, narrow-mouthed Caraipe pots with the fruits of 
the Urucuri' palm and setting them over brisk fires. 
The smoke arising from the heated Urucuri is very 
dense and white ; and as each successive coating 
is applied to the mould — which is done by pouring 
the milk over it, and not by dipping it into the 
milk — the operator holds it in the smoke, which 
hardens the milk in a few moments. 
Captain Pedro's own hut stood beneath the shade 
of an enormous Samaiima or Silk-cotton tree, which 
towered above all the adjacent trees. I took a 
sketch of the lower part of the trunk, and measured 
its circumference, which was 85 feet at about 3 feet 
from the ground ; and had the tape been applied 
