no 
THE AMAZON AND MADEllU RIVRKS. 
power of resistance with tlie least expemliture of means, it conkl urit 
have been solved more snccessfidly. 
Another feature of Amazonian vej^etatiou, even more striking than 
its noble palms, is the urania, called banana sororoca (wild banana) by 
the aborigines on account of likeness to those chief representatives of 
the Musacem. Its broad fan of mighty emerald-green leaves, mounted 
on a slender palmlike shaft from G to S feet in height, forcibly 
reminds the European of the fans of peacock feathers carried in the 
grand processions of the successor of 8t. Peter. In the foreground 
of the sketch representing our first meeting with the Caripunas, may 
be seen a urania or strelitzia, whoso light-green leaves were set ofl:’ by 
the dark background of the forest. 
But of far greater importance to the half-civilised riverines than 
either palms or orchids, for whose beauties they have no eye, are the 
cacao and the caoutchouc-tree [Siflionia elasiica), prodiicts of the virgin- 
forest, essential to the future pi’osperity of the whole conutiy. 
Although India contributes to the supply of caoutchouc,* the 
precious resin which is transformed into a thousand different shapes 
every year in the factories of Europe and North America, and sent 
to the ends of the earth, it cannot compete with Brazil, Avhich takes 
the first place among the rubber-producing countries, in respect as 
well of the vastness of its export of the material as of its superior 
quality. 
On the shores of the Amazon its production, it is true, has already 
been diminished by unreasonable treatment of the trees ; the idea of 
replacing the old ones by young saplings never having presented itself, 
aj)parently, to the mind of the indolent population j but the seringacs, 
or woods of rubber-trees, on the banks of the Madeira, the Purus, 
and other tributaries of the main river, still continue to furnish 
extiaoidinary quantities of it. The province of Amazon alone exports 
more than 50,000 arrobas (1,600,000 lbs.) yearly; while the total of 
the exports of the whole basin slightly exceeds 400,000 arrobas, or 
12,800,000 lbs. per annum. 
Even more remarkable than these figures is the find, that, with 
* The word caoutchouc is of Indian origin ; while seringa and horracha (of which 
the former signifies syringe or sejuirt, and the latter tube) are names given to tlie same 
material by the Portuguese, who were first familiarised by the Indians with the rubber, 
in the shape of tubes which they used as squirts. ’ 
