Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/208

 178 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [March,

The young girls carry water on their heads In well-formed pitchers, just like Cambrian maids ; And all each morn and eve wash in the' stream, And sport like mermaids in the sparkling wave.

" The village is laid out with taste and skill : In the midst a spacious square, where stands the church, And narrow streets diverging all around. Between the houses, filling up each space, The broad, green-leaved, luxuriant plantain grows, Bearing huge bunches of most wholesome fruit; The orange too is there, and grateful lime ; The Inga pendent hangs its yard-long pods (Whose flowers attract the fairy humming-birds); The guava, and the juicy, sweet cashew, And a most graceful palm, which bears a fruit In bright red clusters, much esteem'd for food ; And there are many more which Indians Esteem, and which have only Indian names. Th chouses are of posts fill'd up with mud, Smooth'd, and wash'd over with a pure white clay ; A palm-tree's spreading leaves supply a thatch Impervious to the winter's storms and rain. No nail secures the beams or rafters, all Is from the forest, whose lithe, pendent cords Bind them into a firm enduring mass. From the tough fibre of a fan-palm's leaf They twist a cord to make their hammock-bed, Their bow-string, line, and net for catching fish. Their food is simple — fish and cassava-bread, With various fruits, and sometimes forest game, All season'd with hot, pungent, fiery peppeis. Sauces and seasonings too, and drinks they have. Made from the mandiocca's poisonous juice; And but one foreign luxury, which is salt. Salt here is money : daily they bring to me Cassava cakes, or fish, or ripe bananas, Or birds or insects, fowls or turtles' eggs, And still they ask for salt. Two teacups-full Buy a large basket of cassava cakes, A great bunch of bananas, or a fowl.

" One day they made a festa, and, just like Our villagers at home, they drank much beer, (Beer made from roasted mandiocca cakes,) Call'd here "shirac," by others "caxiri," But just like beer in flavour and effect ; And then they talked much, shouted and sang, And men and maids all danced in a ring With much delight, like children at their play.