172 
TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [February, 
it, thinking that it must be sweet to please at that lollipop- 
loving age, and have found a flavour like aloes or quassia, 
that I could not get out of my mouth for an hour ; others 
equally relished are like yellow soap, and some as sour 
as verjuice. 
These people almost always seem at work, but have 
very little to show for it. The women go to dig up 
mandiocca or yams, or they have weeding or planting to 
do, and at other times have earthen pots to make, and 
their scanty clothing to mend and wash. The men are 
always busy, either clearing the forest or cutting down 
timber for a canoe or for paddles, or to make a board for 
some purpose or other ; and their houses always want 
mending, and then there is thatch to be brought from a 
long distance ; or they want baskets, or bows and arrows, 
or some other thing, which occupies nearly their whole 
time, and yet does not produce them the bare necessaries 
of life, or allow them leisure to hunt the game that 
abounds in the forest around them. This is princi- 
pally the result of everybody doing everything for him- 
self, slowly and with much unnecessary labour, instead 
of occupying himself with one kind of industry, and 
exchanging its produce for the articles he requires. An 
Indian spends a week in cutting down a tree in the 
forest, and fashioning an article which, by the division of 
labour, can be made for sixpence : the consequence is, 
that his work produces but sixpence a week, and he is 
therefore all his life earning a scanty supply of clothing, 
in a country where food may be had almost for nothing. 
Having remained here a month, and obtained twenty- 
five specimens of the umbrella-bird, I prepared to return 
i 'j 
