SUBSTITUTE FOE SALT. 
yes 
tlie solaiiese, the composite, the malvaee®, the drymyrhize®, 
and, which is still more surprising, even in the palm-trees. 
_ In the hut of the Indian who had been so dangerously 
bitten by the viper, we found balls two or three inches in 
diameter, of an earthy and impure salt called chivi, which is 
prepared with great care by the natives. At Maypures a 
conferva is burnt, which is left by the Orinoco on the neigh- 
bouring rocks, when, after high swellings, it again enters its 
bed. At Javita a salt is fabricated by the incineration of 
the spadix and fruit of the palm-tree seje or cltimi. This 
hne palm-tree, which abounds on the banks of the Auvana, 
near the cataract of Guarinumo, and between Javita and 
the Cano Pimiehin, appears to be a new species of cocoa- 
tree. It may be recollected, that the fluid contained in the 
fruit of the common cocoa-tree is often saline, even when 
the tree grows fur from the sea shore. At Madagascar 
»alt is extracted from the sap of a palm-tree called tiro. 
Resides the spadix and the fruit of the seje palm, the 
Indians of Javita lixiviate also the ashes of the famous 
ll ana called cupana, which is a new species of the genus 
Paullinia, consequently a very different plant from the eu- 
pania of Linnaeus. I may here mention, that a missionary 
s ridom travels without being provided with some prepared 
^cds of the cupana. This preparation requires great care. 
Ihe Indians scrape the seeds, mix them with flour of 
cassava, envelope the mass iu plantain leaves, and set it to 
frnnent in water, till it acquires a saffron-yellow colour. 
Inis yellow paste dried in the stm, and diluted in water, is 
taken in the morning as a kind of tea. The beverage is 
“}tter and stomachic, but it appeared to me to have a very 
disagreeable taste. 
On the banks of the Niger, and in a great part of the in- 
erior of Africa, where salt is extremely rare, it is said of a 
cn man, “ho is so fortunate as to eat salt at his meals.” 
us good fortune is uot too common in the interior of Gui- 
^ hhe whites only, particularly the soldiers of the little 
ort of San Carlos, know how to procure pure salt, either 
r °tt the coast of Caracas, or from Chita* by the Eic 
North of Morocote, at flic eastern declivity of the Cordilleia of New 
eiiada. The salt of the coasts, which the Indians call yuguira, costt 
0 piastres the almuda at San Carlos. 
