Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/224

 tions of the district; the mode of collecting the eggs and extracting the oil will be described in the next chapter.

I know several men who have been able, with ordinary sobriety and industry, to bring up their families very respectably, and save money at Ega, as collectors of the spontaneous productions of the neighbourhood. Each family, however, besides this trade, has its little plantation of mandioca, coffee, beans, water melons, tobacco, and so forth, which is managed almost solely by the women. Some do not take the trouble to clear a piece of forest for this purpose, but make use of the sloping, bare, earthy banks of the Solimoens, which remain uncovered by water during eight or nine months of the year, and consequently long enough to give time for the ripening of the crops of mandioca, beans, and so forth. The process with regard to mandioca, the bread of the country, is very simple. A party of women take a few bundles of maníva (mandioca shoots) some fine day in July or August, when the river has sunk some few feet, and plant them in the rich alluvial soil, reckoning with the utmost certainty on finding a plentiful crop when they return in January or February. The regular plantations are all situated some distance from Ega, and across the water, nothing being safe on the mainland near the town on account of the cattle, some hundred head of which are kept grazing in the streets by the townsfolk. Every morning, soon after daybreak, the women are seen paddling off in montarias to their daily labours in these roças or clearings; the mistresses of house-