compared; _”pirarucus”_ with red scales, as large as sturgeons, which
when salted are used in great quantities throughout Brazil;
_”candirus,”_ awkward to capture, but good to eat; _”piranhas,”_ or
devil-fish, striped with red bands, and thirty inches long; turtles
large and small, which are counted by millions, and form so large a
part of the food of the natives; some of every one of these things it
was hoped would figure in turn on the tables of the master and his
men.
And so each day shooting and fishing were to be regularly indulged
in.
For beverages they had a good store of the best that country
produced; _”caysuma”_ or _”machachera,”_ from the Upper and Lower
Amazon, an agreeable liquor of slightly acidulated taste, which is
distilled from the boiled root of the sweet manioc; _”beiju,”_ from
Brazil, a sort of national brandy, the _”chica”_ of Peru; the
_mazato”_ of the Ucayali, extracted from the boiled fruits of the
banana-tree, pressed and fermented; _”guarana,”_ a kind of paste made
from the double almond of the _”paulliniasorbilis,”_ a genuine tablet
of chocolate so far as its color goes, which is reduced to a fine
powder, and with the addition of water yields an excellent drink.
And this was not all. There is in these countries a species of dark
violet wine, which is got from the juice of the palm, and the
aromatic flavor of this _”assais”_ is greatly appreciated by the
Brazilans, and of it there were on board a respectable number of
frasques (each holding a little more than half a gallon), which would
probably be emptied before they arrived at Para.
The special cellar of the jangada did honor to Benito, who had been
appointed its commander-in-chief. Several hundred bottles of sherry,
port, and letubal recalled names dear to the earlier conquerors of
South America. In addition, the young butler had stored away certain
demijohns, holding half a dozen gallons each, of excellent _”tafia,”_
a sugared brandy a trifle more pronounced in taste than the national
_beiju_.
As far as tobacco was concerned, there was none of that coarse kind
which usually contents the natives of the Amazonian basin. It all
came direct from Villa Bella da Imperatriz–or, in other words, fro
the district in which is grown the best tobacco in Central America.
The principal habitation, with its annexes–kitchen, offices, and
cellars–was placed in the rear–or, let us say, stern of the
craft–and formed a part reserved for the Garral family and their
personal servants.
In the center the huts for the Indians and the blacks had been
erected. The staff were thus placed under the same conditions as at
the fazenda of Iquitos, and would always be able to work under the
direction of the pilot.
To house the crew a good many huts were required, and these gave to
the jangada the appearance of a small village got adrift, and, to
tell the truth, it was a better built and better peopled village than
many of those on the Upper Amazon.
For the Indians Joam Garral had designed regular cabins–huts without
walls, with only light poles supporting the roof of foliage. The air
circulated freely throughout these open constructions and swung the
hammock suspended in the interior, and the natives, among whom were
three or four complete families, with women and children, were lodged
as if they were on shore.
The blacks here found their customary sheds. They differed from the
cabins by being closed in on their four faces, of which only one gave
access to the interior. The Indians, accustomed to live in the open
air, free and untrammeled, were not able to accustom themselves to
the imprisonment of the _ajoupas,_ which agreed better with the life
of the blacks.
In the bow regular warehouses had arisen, containing the goods which
Joam Garral was carrying to Belem at the same time as the products of
his forests.
There, in vast storerooms, under the direction of Benito, the rich
cargo had been placed with as much order as if it had been carefully
stowed away in a ship’s hold.
In the first place, seven thousand arrobas of caoutchouc, each of
about thirty pounds, composed the most precious part of the cargo,