Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/343

 THE AMAZON VALLEY. 3°3

equally scarce. On the Javfta road, on the Upper Rio Negro, I observed the same thing. On the Uaupes, I once sent my Indians into the forest to obtain a board of a particular kind of tree ; they searched for three days, and found only a few young trees, none of them of sufficient size.

Certain kinds of hard woods are used on the Amazon and Rio Negro, for the construction of canoes and the schooners used in the navigation of the river. The difficulty of getting timber of any one kind for these vessels is so grea,t, that they are often constructed of half-a-dozen different sorts of wood, and not always of the same colours or degrees of hardness. Trees producing fruit, or with medicinal properties, are often so widely scattered, that two or three only are found within a reasonable distance of a village, and supply the whole population. This peculiarity of distribution must prevent a great trade in timber for any particular purpose being carried on here. The india-rubber and Brazil-nut trees are not altogether exceptions to this rule, and the produce from them is collected over an immense extent of country, to which the innumerable lakes and streams offer a ready access.

The chief district from which india-rubber is procured, is in the country between Para and the Xingu. 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