Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/93

 more in diameter and ten feet in length. A rare wood called Sápu-píra, of excessively hard texture, deep brown in colour, thickly speckled with yellow, is also a product of these forests. Captain Thomas showed me a mortar, four feet high, for pounding coffee, made of it. Many other kinds of ornamental and useful timber are met with, including a kind of box, which I saw made into carpenters' planes; ebony and marupá; the last-mentioned a light whitish wood of the same texture as mahogany. Although the trees have been felled near the village, more of the same kinds are said to exist in the forest, which extends to an unknown distance in the interior. I heard here, also, of the Mururé, a lofty tree which yields a yellow milk of remarkable virtues, on making incisions in the bark. It is called by the Portuguese Mercurio vegetal, or vegetable mercury, from the cures it effects when taken internally in syphilitic rheumatism. It is said to produce terrible pains in the limbs soon after it is taken, but the cure is certain. I was never able to get a sight of this tree. Captain Thomas said that the only specimen he knew of it, had been cut down. Persons in Santarem had attempted to send samples of the milk to Europe for experiment, but they had failed on account of the stone bottles in which it was contained always bursting in transit.

We walked two or three miles along this dark and silent forest road, and then struck off through the thicket to another path running parallel to it, by which we returned to the village. About half way we passed through a tract of wood, densely overgrown with the