PREPARATION OF DAPICHO.
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the missionary, was e m p l o y e d in r e d u c i n g the dapicho into black c a o u t c h o u c . H e had spitted several bits on a slender stick, and was roasting them like meat. T h e dapicho blackens in p r o p o r t i o n as it g r o w s soft, and b e c o m e s elastic. T h e resinous and aromatic smell which tilled the hut, seemed t o indicate that this coloration is the effect o f the d e c o m position o f a carburet o f h y d r o g e n , and that the carbon appears in proportion as the hydrogen burns at a low heat. The Indian beat the softened and blackened mass with a niece o f brazil-wood, formed at o n e end like a club ; he then kneaded the dapicho into balls o f three or four inches in diameter, and let it c o o l . These balls exactly resemble t h e Caoutchouc o f the shops, but their surface remains in general slightly viscous. T h e y are used at San Balthasar in the Indian game of tennis, which is celebrated a m o n g the inhabitants of Uruana and Encaramada ; they are also cut into cylinders, to be used as corks, and are far preferable t o those made o f the bark o f the cork-tree. This use o f c a o u t c h o u c appeared to us the more w o r t h y n o t i c e , as we had been often embarrassed by t he want o f E u r o pean corks. T h e great utility of cork is fully understood in countries where trade has not supplied this bark in p l e n t y . Equinoctial A m e r i c a nowhere produces, not even on the back o f t h e A n d e s , an oak resembling the Q u e r c u s s u b e r ; and neither the light Wood o f the bombax, the ochroma, and other malvaceous plants, nor the rhachis o f maize, o f which the natives make use, can well supply the place o f our corks. T h e missionary showed us, before the Casa de los Solteros ( t h e house where the y o u n g unmarried men reside), a d r u m , which was a hollow cylinder o f wood, two feet long and eighteen inches thick. This drum was beaten with great masses o f dapicho, which served as d r u m s t i c k s ; it bad o p e n i n g s which could be stopped by the hand at will, to vary the sounds, ami was lived on two light supports. Savage notions love noisy music ; the drum and the botuto, or t r u m p e t o f baked earth, in which a tube of three or four feet long c o m m u n i c a t e s with several barrels, are indispensable instruments a m o n g the Indians for their grand pieces of music. T h e night, o f the 30th o f April was sufficiently fine for observing the meridian heights o f x of Southern Cross,