48o NOTES OF A BOTANIST chap, xn, 
were always Indians to climb the trees) all along until November. 
I am passionately fond of pataua-yukise, and it is the only thing 
I shall regret when I leave San Carlos. When I have passed a 
long time without drinking it and recommence, I always find it 
slightly aperient, but this effect passes off in two or three days. 
Among oil- yielding Dicotyledons of equatorial America, I 
suppose the Andiroba {Carapa gicianensis) holds the first place. 
Andiroba oil has the great advantage (in a tropical climate) of 
being so bitter that neither ants nor any other insects will touch it. 
The tree is abundant near Para, especially at the mouth of the 
Tocantins, and is met with all the way up the Amazon. 
From the seeds of two trees, apparently undescribed, abundant 
on the Alto Rio Negro, Orinoco, Casiquiari, Pacimoni, etc., the 
Indians prepare a paste resembling cream cheese in appearance 
and taste. The seeds are first boiled and then steeped for some 
days under water, after which they are broken up by the hand. 
In the boiling a quantity of oil is said to be collected, but I have 
never been able to get a sight of it. These Indians are exceed- 
ingly shy in showing to a white man the edibles, etc., whose use 
is peculiar to themselves, thinking that his only object must be to 
ridicule them. I first saw one of these trees (the Cunuri, a 
Euphorbiacea allied to the India-rubber tree, but with simple 
leaves) near San Gabriel above two years ago, and though I have 
since that time continually come upon it, it is only very lately 
that I met with its flower and fruit on the Casiquiari, and still 
later that on the Upper Pacimoni I came upon some Indians 
eating Cunuri cheese (if I may so call it). From them I obtained 
a small quantity which I wish to send you, but have at present 
nothing to put it in. For Cunuri oil I must still wait with patience. 
It is said to be as bitter as Andiroba oil, but to afford an excellent 
light. The other tree, whose products are quite similar to those 
of the Cunuri, is called Uacil. It is a leguminous tree with 
pretty pink flowers of very curious structure, and I sent Mr. 
Bentham two species of it from the Rio Uaupes. 
There are numerous other trees and palms of this region yield- 
ing oil, and I have only particularised a few of those which are so 
abundant that their oil might be procured in any quantity were 
there only industrious hands to collect it. 
Of resins also there is no lack, but I doubt if any of them 
would come in for candle-making. The Venezuelans make a 
flambeau, which they call mechon, of the resin of various species 
of Ici'ca, poured when melted into the decayed stem of the blow- 
ing-cane palm from which the soft interior has fallen away, or into 
a bamboo. It emits rather too much smoke (as Mr. Wilson 
remarks of resins), but the odour is very agreeable. 
