210 
THE UPPER AMAZONS. Chap. III. 
tions of the district ; the mode of collecting the eggs 
and extracting the oil will be described in the next- 
chapter. 
I know several men who have been able, with ordi- 
nary sobriety and industry, to bring up their families 
very respectably, and save money at Eg a, as collectors 
of the spontaneous productions of the neighbourhood. 
Each family, however, besides this trade, has its little 
plantation of mandioca, coffee, beans, water melons, 
tobacco, and so forth, which is managed almost solely 
by the women. Some do not take the trouble to 
clear a piece of forest for this purpose, but make 
use of the sloping, bare, earthy banks of the Soli- 
moens, which remain uncovered by water during eight 
or nine months of the year, and consequently long 
enough to give time for the ripening of the crops of 
mandioca, beans, and so forth. The process with re- 
gard to mandioca, the bread of the country, is very 
simple. A party of women take a few bundles of 
maniva (mandioca shoots) some fine day in July or 
August, when the river has sunk some few feet, and 
plant them in the rich alluvial soil, reckoning with the 
utmost certainty on finding a plentiful crop when they 
return in January or February. The regular planta- 
tions are all situated some distance from Ega, and across 
the water, nothing being safe on the mainland near the 
town on account of the cattle, some hundred head of 
which are kept grazing in the streets by the townsfolk. 
Every morning, soon after daybreak, the women are 
seen paddling off in montarias to their daily labours 
in these ro^as or clearings ; the mistresses of house- 
