Our travellers accompanied a large fishing-party. They had four or five canoes, and a large quantity of barbasco; a root which has the property of stupefying, or intoxicating, the fish. The manner of fishing is to close up the mouth of an inlet of the river with a network made of reeds; and then, mashing the barbasco-root to a pulp, throw it into the water. This turns the water white, and poisons it; so that the fish soon begin rising to the surface, dead, and are taken into the canoes with small tridents, or pronged sticks. Almost at the moment of throwing the barbasco into the water, the smaller fish rise to the surface, and die in one or two minutes; the larger fish survive longer. The salt fish, which constitutes an important article of food and also of barter trade, is brought from down the river in large pieces of about eight pounds each, cut from the _vaca marina_, or sea-cow, also found in our Florida streams, and there called _manatee_. It is found in great numbers in the Amazon and its principal tributaries. It is not, strictly speaking, a fish, but an animal of the whale kind, which nourishes its young at the breast. It is not able to leave the water; but, in feeding, it gets near the shore, and raises its head out. It is most often taken when feeding. Our travellers met a canoe of Indians, one man and two women, going up the river for salt. They bought, with beads, some turtle-eggs, and proposed to buy a monkey they had; but one of the women clasped the little beast in her arms, and set up a great outcry, lest the man should sell it. The man wore a long cotton gown, with a hole in the neck for the head to come through, and short, wide sleeves. He had on his arm a bracelet of monkeys' teeth, and the women had nose-rings of white beads. Their dress was a cotton petticoat, tied round the waist; and all were filthy. Sept. 1.--They arrived at Laguna. Here they found two travelling merchants, a Portuguese and a Brazilian. They had four large boats, of about eight tons each, and two or three canoes. Their cargo consisted of iron and iron implements, crockery-ware, wine, brandy, copper kettles, coarse short swords (a very common implement of the Indians), guns, ammunition, salt, fish, &c., which they expected to exchange for straw hats, cotton cloth, sugar, coffee, and money. They were also buying up all the sarsaparilla they could find, and despatching it back in canoes. They invited our travellers to breakfast; and the lieutenant says, "I thought that I never tasted any thing better than the _farinha_, which I saw now for the first time."