Travels on the Amazon

by Alfred Russel Wallace

The chief district from which india-rubber is procured, is in the country between Pará and the Xingú. On the Upper Amazon and the Rio Negro it is also found, but is not yet collected.

The Brazil-nuts, from the Bertholletia excelsa, are brought chiefly from the interior; the greater part from the country around the junction of the Rio Negro and Madeira with the Amazon rivers. This tree takes more than a whole year to produce and ripen its fruits. In the month of January I observed the trees loaded at the same time with flowers and ripe fruits, both of which were falling from the tree; from these flowers would be formed the nuts of the following year; so that they probably require eighteen months for their complete development from the bud. The fruits, which are nearly as hard and heavy as cannon-balls, fall with tremendous force from the height of a hundred feet, crashing through the branches and undergrowth, and snapping off large boughs which they happen to strike against. Persons are sometimes killed by them, and accidents are not unfrequent among the Indians engaged in gathering them.

The fruits are all procured as they fall from the tree. They are collected together in small heaps, where they are opened with an axe, an operation that requires some practice and skill, and the triangular nuts are taken out and carried to the canoes in baskets. Other trees of the same family (Lecythideæ) are very abundant, and are remarkable for their curious fruits, which have lids, and are shaped like pots or cups, whence they are called "pot-trees." Some of the smaller ones are called by the natives "cuyas de macaco,"—monkeys' calabashes.

The next most important vegetable product of the Amazon district, is the Salsaparilha, the roots of Smilax syphilitica, and perhaps of other allied species. This plant appears to occur over the whole forest-district of the Amazon, from Venezuela to Bolivia, and from the Lower Amazon to Peru. It is not generally found near the great rivers, but far in the interior, on the banks of the small streams, and on dry rocky ground. It is principally dug up by the Indians, often by the most uncivilised tribes, and is the means of carrying on a considerable trade with them.

The Brazilian nutmegs, produced by the Nectandrum Puchury, grow in the country between the Rio Negro and Japura.

The Cumarú, or Tonquin-beans, are very abundant on the Upper Rio Negro, and are also found near Santarem on the Amazon.

A highly odoriferous bark, called by the Portuguese "Cravo de Maranhño" (Cloves of Maranham), is produced by a small tree growing only on one or two small tributaries of the Rio Negro.

A peculiar transparent oil, with an odour of turpentine, called Sassafras by the Venezuelans, is abundantly obtained by tapping a tree, common on the Upper Rio Negro, whence it is exported to Barra, and used for mixing oil-colours. In the Lower Amazon, a bitter oil, called Andiróba, much used for lamps, is made from a forest fruit.

A whitish resin, with a strong camphorous smell, is produced very abundantly in the Rio Negro and the Amazon, and is commonly used as pitch for the canoes and all the larger vessels of the country; while the inner bark of young trees of the Bertholletia excelsa, or Brazil-nut tree, is used instead of oakum for caulking.

Among the forest-trees of the Amazon, the Leguminosæ are much the most abundant in species, and they also most attract attention from their curious bean-like fruits, often of extraordinary size or length. Some of the Ingás, and allied genera, have pods a yard long, and very slender; while others are short, and three or four inches wide. There are some curious fruits of this family, which grow on a stalk three to five feet long and very slender, appearing as if some one had suspended a number of pods from the branches by long strings.