DAVID   PIETERSZ.   DE  VEIES.                          57
ent metals, yielding as much as any places in the East or Webt Indies, both of the better and inferior kinds, and in most of the mountains. Upon the mountains, are found very healthy dwelling places. There is, also, a middle kind of land, which is of a medium height, very temperate, healthy, and fertile, and almost all peopled. It is full of lakes and pleasant streams of water, fine groves, and pleasant plains, for profit, pleasure, and recreation, and not unprovided with minerals.
They are very much troubled here with mosquitoes, which they call mapiry, whose sting is very venomous. The building of many fires is a good remedy. They have there, also, fleas, which they call Sico.
We will now speak of the productions of the country, and other things which serve to sustain the life of man.
The provision of this land, for supporting life, is manifold. First the root of cassava, of which they make bread, in the following manner : they break the root upon a stone, and express the juice, which, in its raw state, is poisonous, for I threw a bit of it to a hen, which died therefrom immediately ; but, boiled with Cayenne pepper,—of which they have a great abundance,—it affords an excellent and whole-pome sauce. Then they dry the bruised root, and bake it upon a stone in the same manner as oatcakes are baked. This bread is then fit to be used ; they bake it as thick as one's finger. There is a species of large wheat, called maize, or Turkey wheat, like that of Virginia, which grain is a peculiar provision for this country, and is very productive, yielding a thousand or fifteen hundred for one, and frequently more. It makes very good flour for bread, and good malt for beer or ale, and serves various necessary purposes for the support of man. Of the before-mentioned cassava bread, and of this Indian corn, they make a liquor, which they call passiauw, which must be used in four or five days. They make also another beverage of cassava, which they call^er-nouw, orperranon ; which they prepare in large pots, and boil it, as they do beer in Holland. It foams, and is as good and strong as the beer of Breme, but it is somewhat hot; it has, also, as high a colour as Breme beer, and can be kept good ten days. There are several kinds, some strong, others weak, some thick, others thin, but it was all good, and well