CHEAPNESS OF PROVISIONS. 
291 
1851.] 
fish to every other article of food. One never tires of it; 
and I must again repeat that I believe there are fish 
here superior to any in the world. Our fowls cost us 
about a penny each, paid in fish-hooks or salt, so that 
they are not such expensive food as they would be at 
home. In fact, if a person buys his hooks, salt, and 
other things in Para, where they are about half the 
price they are in Barra, the price of a fowl will not ex- 
ceed a halfpenny ; and fish, pacovas, and other eatables 
that the country produces, in the same proportion. A 
basket of farinha, that will last one person very well a 
month, will cost about threepence ; so that with a small 
expenditure a man may obtain enough to live on. The 
Indians here made their mandiocca bread very differently 
from, and very superior to, those of the adjacent rivers. 
The greater part is tapioca, which they mix with a small 
quantity of the prepared mandiocca-root, and form a 
white, gelatinous, granular cake, which with a little use 
is very agreeable, and is much sought after by all the 
white traders on the river. Parinha they scarcely ever 
eat themselves, but make it only to sell ; and as they 
extract the tapioca, which is the pure glutinous portion 
of the root, to make their own bread, they mix the refuse 
with a little fresh mandiocca to make farinha, which is 
thus of a very poor quality ; yet such is the state of 
agriculture on the Rio Negro, that the city of Barra 
depends in a great measure upon this refuse food of the 
Indians, and several thousand alqueires are purchased, 
and most of it sent there, annually. 
The principal food of these Indians is fish, and when 
they have neither this nor any game, they boil a 
u 2 
