208 
THE UPPER AMAZONS. Chap. III. 
The trade of Ega, like that of all places on the Upper 
Amazons, consists in the collecting of the produce of 
the forests and waters, and exchanging it for European 
and North American goods. About a dozen large 
vessels, schooners and cubertas, owned by the merchants 
of the place, are employed in the traffic. Only one 
voyage a year is made to Para, which occupies from four 
to five months, and is arranged so that the vessels shall 
return before the height of the dry season, when they 
are sent with assortments of goods ; cloth, hardware, 
salt, and a few luxuries, such as biscuits, wine, &c., to 
the . fishing stations, to buy up produce for the next trip 
to the capital. Although large profits are apparently 
made both ways, the retail prices of European wares 
being from 40 to 80 per cent, higher, and the net prices 
of produce to the same degree lower, than those of 
Para, the traders do not get rich very rapidly. An old 
Portuguese who had traded with success at Ega for 
thirty years was reputed rich when he died : his 
savings then amounting to nine contos of reis, or about 
a thousand pounds sterling. The value of produce 
fluctuates much, and losses are often sustained in con- 
sequence. Excessively long credit is given : the system 
being to trust the collectors of produce with goods a 
twelvemonth in advance ; and if anything happens in 
the meantime to a customer, the debt is lost altogether. 
The articles of export from the upper river are cacao, 
salsaparilla, Brazil nuts, bast for caulking vessels (the 
inner bark of various species of Lecythidese or Brazil-nut 
trees), copaiiba balsam, India-rubber, salt-fish (pirarucu), 
turtle-oil, mishira (potted vacca marina), and grass ham- 
