market, because they drop out of the
capsule as soon as ripe, and are devoured by peccaries and monkeys. The
most luscious fruit on the Amazon is the atta of Santarem. It has the
color, taste, and size of the chirimoya; but the rind, which incloses a
rich, custardly pulp, frosted with sugar, is scaled. Next in rank are
the melting pine-apples of Para, and the golden papayas, fully equal to
those on the western coast. This is the original home of the cacao. It
grows abundantly in the forests of the upper river, and particularly on
the banks of the Madeira. The wild nut is smaller but more oily than the
cultivated. The Amazon is destined to supply the world with the bulk of
chocolate. The aromatic tonka beans (Cumaru) used in flavoring snuff,
and the Brazilian nutmegs (Puxiri), inferior to the Ceylon, grow on
lofty trees on the Negro and Lower Amazon. The Guarana beans are the
seeds of a trailing plant; from these the Mauhes prepare the great
medicine, on the Amazon, for diarrhoea and intermittent fevers. Its
active principle, caffeine, is more abundant than in any other
substance, amounting to 5.07 per cent.; while black tea contains only
2.13. Coffee, rice, tobacco, and sugar-cane are grown to a limited
extent. Rio Negro coffee, if put into the market, would probably
eclipse that of Ceara, the best Brazilian. Wild rice grows abundantly on
the banks of the rivers and lakes. The cultivated grain is said to yield
forty fold. Most of the tobacco comes down from the Maranon and Madeira.
It is put up in slender rolls from three to six feet long, tapering at
each end, and wound with palm fibre. The sugar-cane is an exotic from
Southeastern Asia, but grows well. The first sugar made in the New World
was by the Dutch in the island of St. Thomas, 1610. Farina is the
principal farinaceous production of Brazil. The mandioca or cassava
(_Manihot utilissima_) from which it is made is supposed to be
indigenous, though it is not found wild. It does not grow at a higher
altitude than 2000 feet. Life and death are blended in the plant, yet
every part is useful. The cattle eat the leaves and stalks, while the
roots are ground into pulp, which, when pressed and baked, forms farina,
the bread of all classes. The juice is a deadly poison: thirty-five
drops were sufficient to kill, in six minutes, a negro convicted of
murder; but it deposits a fine sediment of pure starch that is the
well-known tapioca; and the juice, when fermented and boiled,