Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/222

 The trade of Ega, like that of all places on the Upper Amazons, consists in the collecting of the produce of the forests and waters, and exchanging it for European and North American goods. About a dozen large vessels, schooners and cubertas, owned by the merchants of the place, are employed in the traffic. Only one voyage a year is made to Pará, which occupies from four to five months, and is arranged so that the vessels shall return before the height of the dry season, when they are sent with assortments of goods; cloth, hardware, salt, and a few luxuries, such as biscuits, wine, &c, to the fishing stations, to buy up produce for the next trip to the capital. Although large profits are apparently made both ways, the retail prices of European wares being from 40 to 80 per cent. higher, and the net prices of produce to the same degree lower, than those of Pará, the traders do not get rich very rapidly. An old Portuguese who had traded with success at Ega for thirty years was reputed rich when he died: his savings then amounting to nine contos of reis, or about a thousand pounds sterling. The value of produce fluctuates much, and losses are often sustained in consequence. Excessively long credit is given: the system being to trust the collectors of produce with goods a twelvemonth in advance; and if anything happens in the meantime to a customer, the debt is lost altogether.

The articles of export from the upper river are cacao, salsaparilla, Brazil nuts, bast for caulking vessels (the inner bark of various species of Lecythideæ or Brazil-nut trees), copaüba balsam, India-rubber, salt-fish (pirarucú), turtle-oil, mishíra (potted vacca marina), and grass ham-