Chap. III. 
TRADE. 
209 
mocks. The total value of the produce annually ex- 
ported from Ega, I calculated at from seven to eight 
thousand pounds sterling. Most of the articles are 
collected in the forest by the Ega people, who take 
their families and live in the woods for months at a 
time, during the proper seasons. Some of the produc- 
tions, such as salsaparilla and balsam of copaiiba, have 
been long ago exhausted in the neighbourhood of towns, 
at least near the banks of the rivers, the only parts that 
have yet been explored, and are now got only by more 
adventurous traders during long voyages up the branch 
streams. The search for India-rubber has commenced 
but very lately ; the tree appears to grow plentifully 
on some of the rivers, but only an insignificant fraction 
of the immense forest has yet been examined. Grass 
hammocks are manufactured by the wild tribes, and 
purchased of them in considerable quantities by the 
salsaparilla collectors. They are knitted with simple 
rods, except the larger kinds, which are woven in 
clumsy wooden looms. The fibre of which they are 
made is not grass, but the young leaflets of certain kinds 
of palm trees (Astryocaryum). These are split, and the 
strips twisted into two or three- strand cord, by rolling 
them with the fingers on the naked thigh. Salt-fish 
and mishira are prepared by the half-breeds and civilized 
Indians, who establish fishing stations (feitorias) on 
the greiat sandbanks laid bare by the retreating waters, 
in places where fish, turtle, and manatee abound, and 
spend the whole of the dry season in this occupa- 
tion. Turtle oil is made from the eggs of the large 
river turtle, and is one of the principal produc- 
VOL. II. P 
