KISILALA. 
405 
Chap. XXIV.—B. P.] 
the river below. He had been as far as the Javali 
mine in one direction, and often to Blewfields in the 
other • indeed, he had been as far south as Greytown, 
so he ought to have learned something of the world 
after such extensive travels. 
The Woolwa Indian seemed almost in the condition 
of a slave, for he did whatever the other told him, if 
not with cheerful obedience, at all events without a 
murmur. The two women were the wives of the 
Mosquito man, and uglier-looking squaws it has 
seldom been my lot to see. They were busily en¬ 
gaged in chewing cassava, to make mushla for a feast, 
spitting it out when well mixed with saliva into a 
large wooden dish scooped out of a tree. It gave me 
all the sensations of sea-sickness to look at them and 
the filthy contents of their howl. After two or three 
days’ fermentation, this delectable beverage is ready 
for use, or rather abuse. It is very sour, very strong, 
and looks like buttermilk. 
The preparation of an intoxicating liquor from the 
cassava, or yuka (Manihot Aipi ', Pohl), has been from 
time immemorial practised in the interior of Peru, where 
the Indians call it “masato.” Antonio Eaimondy, in 
his ‘Apuntes sobre la Provincia litoral de Loreto ’ (Lima, 
1862, p. 132), gives a circumstantial account of it, 
which, from its ethnological importance, may here be 
translated, and ought to be compared with the descrip¬ 
tion of the preparation of kava furnished by Dr. See- 
mann in his ‘ Yiti ’ (London, 1862,p. 327):—“In order 
to get an idea of the way in which this beverage (masato) 
is prepared, it is necessary to enter for a moment one of 
