352 
TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. 
\Mafcli, 
fruit, with a hard thick outer skin of almost a woody 
texture, then a small quantity of very sweet pulpy matter, 
and within a large black oval stone. The pulp is very 
luscious, but is so acrid as to make the mouth and 
throat sore, if more than two or three are eaten. When 
however the juice is boiled, it loses this property ; and 
when made into mingau with tapioca, is exceedingly 
palatable, and generally highly esteemed in the Upper 
Rio Negro, where it is abundant. It takes at least a 
peck of fruit, to give one small panella of mingau. 
On the next day, the 10th, in the afternoon, the In- 
dians all suddenly sprang like otters into the water, 
swam to the shore, and disappeared in the forest. “ Oco- 
ki,” was the answer to my inquiries as to the cause of 
their sudden disappearance ; and I soon found they had 
discovered an ocoki-tree, and were loading themselves 
with the fruit to satisfy the cravings of hunger, for an 
Indian’s throat and mouth seem invulnerable to all those 
scarifying substances which act upon civilized man. The 
tree is one of the loftiest in the forest, but the fruit falls 
as soon as ripe, and its hard woody coating preserves 
it from injury. Baskets, shirts, trowsers, etc., were soon 
filled with the fruit and emptied into the canoe ; and I 
made each of the Indians bring a small basketful for 
me ; so that we had mingau de ocoki ” for three suc- 
ceeding mornings. 
The rocks from Caruru often present a scoriaceous 
appearance, as if the granite had been remelted. Some- 
times they are a mass of burnt fragments, sometimes a 
honeycombed rock with a shining surface. In some 
places there are enclosed fragments of a finer-grained 
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