.60
    One pound of potatoes .60
    Calico with stamped pattern, pr. yd. .90
    One Collins machete, N.Y. price, $1.00 12.00
    One pair of men’s shoes 11.00
    One bottle of very plain port wine, 22,000 reis or 7.30

Under such circumstances, of course, the food supply is very poor.  Except for a few dried cereals and staples, nothing is used but canned goods; the instances where small domestic animals are slaughtered are so few as to be negligible.  Furthermore, as a rule, these very animals are converted into jerked meat to be kept for months and months.  Some fish are taken from the river, but the Amazon fish are none too palatable generally speaking, with a few exceptions; besides, the natives are not skilful enough to prepare them to suit a civilised palate.

A typical, well provided table on the Amazon would afford dry farinha in the first place.  This is the granulated root of the Macacheira plant, the Jatropha manihot, which to our palates would seem like desiccated sawdust, although it appears to be a necessity for the Brazilian.  He pours it on his meat, into his soup, and even into his wine and jams.  Next you would have a black bean, which for us lacks flavour even as much as the farinha.  With this there would probably be rice, and on special occasions jerked beef, a product as tender and succulent as the sole of a riding boot.  Great quantities of coffee are drunk, made very thick and prepared without milk or sugar.  All these dishes are served at once, so that they promptly get cold and are even more tasteless before their turn comes to be devoured.

For five months I experienced this torturing menu at the hotel with never-ceasing regularity.  The only change I ever noticed was on Sundays or days of feast when beans might occupy the other end of the table.

But what can the Brazilians do?  The cost of living is about ten times as high as in New York.  Agriculture is impossible in the regions where the land is flooded annually, and the difficulties of shipping are enormous.  When I left the hotel and started housekeeping on my own account, I found that I could not do a great deal better.  By specialising on one thing at a time I avoided monotony to some extent, but then it was probably only because I was a “new broom” at the business.

As illustrating the community life that we enjoyed at the hotel, I will relate a happening that I have set down in my notes as an instance of the great mortality of this region.  One afternoon a woman’s three-months-old child was suddenly taken ill.  The child grew worse rapidly and the mother finally decided that it was going to die.  Her husband was up the river on the rubber estates and she did not want to be left alone.  So she came to the hotel with the child and besought them to let her in.  The infant was placed in a hammock where it lay crying pitifully.  At last the wailings of the poor little creature became less frequent and the child died.