VOYAGE TO THE RIO NEGRO 193 
for the morrow. Money they rarely see, and when 
they have it they are unable to count it. Their 
sole article of commerce is pirarucil, and even that 
is generally sold before it is caught. At the time 
of my visit there was great lack even of farinha, 
their custom being to make it almost from day to 
day ; and they levied frequent contributions on my 
biscuits, coffee, salt, etc. 
At some sitios plantains were pretty extensively 
grown, but the fruits were all destroyed before they 
reached their full size by parrots, which were more 
numerous than ordinary that year the women told 
us. I suppose they were bolder, at least, from the 
men being away. One day I landed at a sitio in 
quest of plantains, and found — as was most usual — 
only women at home. The mistress, an elderly, 
grey-headed Mamaluca, had a daughter of twelve 
years of age, so good-looking and fair-skinned that 
1 could not help inquiring into her parentage, and 
was told that her father was a Spaniard, then 
absent at Cameta ; and further, to my great 
astonishment, that although so young she had 
been a wife a year and a half! The old woman 
said she had another daughter, younger and still 
fairer, then at school at Obidos, whom she should 
like to marry to me, as she had a great fancy for 
Englishmen ; but as I had no fancy for a wife of 
ten years old, the negotiation went no further. 
We had, on the whole, no cause to complain of 
lack of eatables, either in quantity or variety ; for, 
besides our own stock of dried provisions, we could 
often buy fresh fish, and game we could shoot 
every day, often without having to leave the boat. 
Darters and herons we had within shot almost the 
VOL. I o 
