We have now glanced at a few of the most important uses to which Palms are applied, but in order to be able to appreciate how much the native tribes of the countries where they most abound are dependent on this noble family of plants, and how they take part in some form or other in almost every action of the Indian’s life, we must enter into his hut and inquire into the origin and structure of the various articles we shall see around us. Suppose then we visit an Indian cottage on the banks of the Rio Negro, a great tributary of the river Amazon in South America. The main supports of the building are trunks of some forest tree of heavy and durable wood, but the light rafters overhead are formed by the straight cylindrical and uniform stems of the Jará palm. The roof is thatched with large triangular leaves, neatly arranged in regular alternate rows, and bound to the rafters with sipós or forest creepers; the leaves are those of the Caraná palm. The door of the house is a framework of thin hard strips of wood neatly thatched over; it is made of the split stems of the Pashiúba palm. In one corner stands a heavy harpoon for catching the cow-fish; it is formed of the black wood of the _Pashiúba barriguda_. By its side is a blowpipe ten or twelve feet long, and a little quiver full of small poisoned arrows hangs up near it; with these the Indian procures birds for food, or for their gay feathers, or even brings down the wild hog or the tapir, and it is from the stem and spines of two species of Palms that they are made. His great bassoon-like musical instruments are made of palm stems; the cloth in which he wraps his most valued feather ornaments is a fibrous palm spathe, and the rude chest in which he keeps his treasures is woven from palm leaves. His hammock, his bow-string and his fishing-line are from the fibres of leaves which he obtains from different palm trees, according to the qualities he requires in them,—the hammock from the Mirití, and the bow-string and fishing-line from the Tucúm. The comb which he wears on his head is ingeniously constructed of the hard bark of a palm, and he makes fish hooks of the spines, or uses them to puncture on his skin the peculiar markings of his tribe. His children are eating the agreeable red and yellow fruit of the Pupunha or peach palm, and from that of the Assaí he has prepared a favourite drink, which he offers you to taste. That carefully suspended gourd contains oil, which he has extracted from the fruit of another species; and that long elastic plaited cylinder used for squeezing dry the mandiocca pulp to make his bread, is made of the bark of one of the singular climbing palms, which alone can resist for a considerable time the action of the poisonous juice. In each of these cases a species is selected better adapted than the rest for the peculiar purpose to which it is applied, and often having several different uses which no other plant can serve