forest lands into a productive state is one of
the severest tasks in the Montanas, and it can only be performed in the
hottest season of the year. As the soil is always moist, and the
vegetation full of sap, the trees must be cut down about the end of the
rainy season, and after drying for some months they are burned; but they
are seldom brought into a state of such aridity as to be destroyed by
the action of the fire. This is a considerable obstruction to the
progress of raising plants; for the seed must be sown between the felled
trees, which are perhaps only half-charred, and are still damp. In
consequence of this, the practice is, in the first year, to plant maize
at the places where the burnt trees are laid; the maize grows in almost
incredible abundance, and the result is a singularly rich harvest, after
which, part of the burned wood is removed. The same process is renewed
after every harvest, until all the burnt trees are cleared off and a
free field gained for the cultivation of the perennial plants.

Far more fortunate than the Indians who are neighbors of the
plantations, are those who live far back in the interior of the
forests, and who, in consequence of their great distance from any
settlement, seldom have intercourse with the civilized world. Content
with what bounteous nature offers them, and ignorant of the wants of
more refined life, they seek nothing beyond such things as they can,
without any great efforts, obtain in the districts in which they
dwell. There they plant their little patches of ground, the care of
which is consigned to the women. The men takes their bows and arrows
and set out on hunting expeditions, during which they are for weeks,
often months, absent from their homes. The rainy season drives them
back to their huts, where they indulge in indolent repose, which is
only occasionally suspended when they are engaged in fishing. The
return of the sunny sky draws them out again on their expeditions, in
which they collect a sufficient supply of food for the year.

But wherever these Indians have settled on the banks of great rivers,
the trading intercourse produces an alteration in their mode of life.
Europeans and Creoles then try to create among them, as among the
plantation Indians, a desire to satisfy unnecessary wants, and thereby
they are induced to collect the valuable productions of the forests.
In the loftier districts of the Montanas the Peruvian bark is found:
the lower and mo