In almost every house, whether Indian or Brazilian, I observed a large pot of this fruit preparing, either indoors over a fire made on the floor, or on the ground under a tree in the neighbourhood of the house. As soon as they are nearly ready, groups of children in a state of nudity, and half naked men and women seat themselves around the pot, each furnished with two stones, a larger and a smaller one, for the purpose of breaking the nut after they have devoured the outward fleshy part; the taste of the kernel is not unlike that of boiled beans. Fish is in general the staple food of these people, but it is difficult to procure when the river is much flooded. At the west end of the village there is a large wide-spreading _Zizyphus_ tree standing alone, and as these trees retain their dense covering of leaves all the year round, their shade is sought after both by men and animals during the excessive heat of the day. Under that of which I now speak were to be seen a number of villagers of both sexes, the women squatting on mats spread on the ground, and occupied in spinning with a distaff a coarse kind of cotton yarn used principally as wicks for tapers, which they make of a brown coloured native wax. The men are much less industrious than the women, being generally to be seen standing about in a state of idleness, or swinging in their hammocks either in their houses or beneath the shade of a tree. Under the large _Zizyphus_ tree several hammocks are hung up every morning, and they are seldom unoccupied. On Sundays the women lay aside their spinning apparatus, but immediately after mass, groups of them may be seen playing cards, at which they continue during the whole day; as they do not play for money, they use only french beans as counters. Until I gained sufficient strength to leave the island, I also spent much of my time under the shade of this tree, either listening to the conversation of these people, or answering the thousand and one questions put by them respecting my own and other distant countries. These questions were often sufficiently ridiculous, and I could often perceive that my answers were considered stretches of the long bow, although they were too polite to say so; nor was it only among the poor islanders of San Pedro, that I observed this to be the case, for the same often occurred among those who were considered well educated people. I remember once to have been conversing with the President of one of the inland provinces about Steam Navigation, and on telling him that many of the English Steam-boats were now entirely constructed of iron, he did not say he did not believe me, but simply remarked “that in Brazil, when iron was put into the water it always sank.”