The taste of this beverage, reminding one slightly of almonds, is very palatable; still, it scarcely accounts for the passionate liking entertained for it by the inhabitants of the greater part of South America. It must be the stimulating effects of the paullinin it contains (an alkaloid like caffeine and theïne) that render it so indispensable to those who have been accustomed to it. All the boats that come lightly freighted with ipecacuanha and deer- or tiger-hides, from Mato Grosso down the Arinos and the Tapajoz, in face of the considerable cataracts and rapids of the latter, take their full loads of guaraná at Santarem; and the heavy boats of the Madeira also convey large quantities of it to Bolivia; for at Cuyabá, as well as at Santa Cruz de la Sierra and Cochabamba, there are many who cannot do without their guaraná, for which they often have to pay thirty francs the pound, and who prefer all the rigors of fasting to abstinence from their favorite beverage. On the other hand, the mestizo population on the Amazon, where it is prepared on a large scale by the half-civilized tribes of the Mauhés and Mundurucús and sold at about three francs the pound, are not so passionately attached to it; they rather take coffee and a sort of coarse chocolate, which they manufacture for themselves.
CANOE- AND CAMP-LIFE ON THE MADEIRA.
FRANZ KELLER.
[To the extract just made from Keller’s “Amazon and Madeira Rivers,” we add the following, in which an interesting account of camp-life in the forest and river regions of Brazil is given.]
The lower course of the Madeira presents, for more than four hundred and sixty miles, a picture of grand simplicity, and, it must be owned, monotony, which, magnificent as it appears at first, wearies the eye and sickens the heart at last,—a dead calm on an unruffled, mirror-like sheet of water glaring in the sun, and, as far as the eye can reach, two walls of dark green forest, with the dark-blue firmament above them; in the foreground, slender palms and gigantic orchid-covered trunks, with blooming creepers hanging from the wave-worn shore, with its red earthslips, down into the turbid floods. No hill breaks the finely-indented line of the foliage, which everywhere bounds the horizon, only here and there a few palm-covered sheds peep out of the green; and still more rarely do we sight one of their quiet dark inmates. Stately kingfishers looking thoughtfully into the river, white herons standing for hours on one leg, and alligators lying so motionless at the mouth of some rivulet that their jaggy tails and scarcely protruding skulls might easily be taken for some half-sunken trunks, are the only animals to be seen, and certainly they do not increase the liveliness of the scene. Dreary and monotonous as the landscape, the days, too, pass in unvaried succession.
With the first dawn of day, before the white mist that hides the smooth surface of the river has disappeared with the rays of the rising sun, the day’s work begins. The boatswains call their respective crews; the tents are broken up as quickly as possible; the cooking apparatus, the hammocks and hides that served as beds, are taken on board, together with our arms and mathematical instruments, and every one betakes himself to his post. The pagaias (paddles) are dipped into the water, and the prows of our heavy boats turn slowly from the shore to the middle of the stream. Without the loss of a minute, the oars are plied for three or four hours at a steady but rather quick rate, until a spot on shore is discovered easy of access and offering a dry fire-place and some fuel for the preparation of breakfast. If it be on one of the long sand-banks, a roof is made of one of the sails, that rarely serve for anything else; if in the wood, the undergrowth, in the shade of some large tree, is cleared for the reception of our little table and tent-chairs.
The functions of the culinary chef for the white faces, limited to the preparation of a dish of black beans, with some fish or turtle, are simple enough, but, to be appreciated, certainly require the hearty appetite acquired by active life in the open air. The Indians have to cook by turns for their respective boats’ crews; their unalterable bill of fare being a pap of flour of Indian corn or mandioca, with fresh or dried fish, or a piece of jacaré (alligator).
Most of those who are not busy cooking spend their time preparing new bast shirts, the material for which is found almost everywhere in the neighborhood of our halting-places. Soon the wood is alive with the sound of hatchets and the crack of falling trees; and, even before they are summoned to breakfast, they return with pieces of a silky bast of about four and a half yards long and somewhat less than one and a quarter yard wide. Their implements for shirt-making are of primitive simplicity,—a heavy wooden hammer with notches, called maceta, and a round piece of wood to work upon. Continuously beaten with the maceta, the fibres of the bast become loosened, until the originally hard piece of wood gets soft and flexible, and about double its former breadth. After it has been washed, wrung out to remove the sap, and dried in the sun, it has the appearance of a coarse woollen stuff of a bright whitish-yellow or light brown, disclosing two main layers of wavy fibres held together by smaller filaments. A more easily prepared and better working-garment for a tropical climate is hardly to be found than this, called cáscara by the Indians of Bolivia, and turury by those of the Amazon. Its cut is as simple and classical as its material. A hole is cut in the middle of a piece about ten feet long, to pass the head through, and the depending skirt is sewn together on both sides, from below up to the height of the girdle, which usually is a piece of cotton string or liana.