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For beverages they had a good store of the best that country produced; "caysuma" or "machachera," from the Upper and Lower Amazon, an agreeable liquor of slightly acidulated taste, which is distilled from the boiled root of the sweet manioc; "beiju," from Brazil, a sort of national brandy, the "chica" of Peru; the "mazato" of the Ucayali, extracted from the boiled fruits of the banana-tree, pressed and fermented; "guarana," a kind of paste made from the double almond of the "paulliniasorbilis," a genuine tablet of chocolate so far as its color goes, which is reduced to a fine powder, and with the addition of water yields an excellent drink.
They boil the meat in earthenware kettles filled with Tucupi sauce, and eat it with beiju, or mandioca-cakes. The women are not allowed to taste of the meat, but forced to content themselves with sopping pieces of cake in the liquor.
In addition, the young butler had stored away certain demijohns, holding half a dozen gallons each, of excellent "tafia," a sugared brandy a trifle more pronounced in taste than the national beiju. As far as tobacco was concerned, there was none of that coarse kind which usually contents the natives of the Amazonian basin.
According to Jose, who had kept himself sober, and was alarmed at the other's violent conduct, the owner of the house and Pinto had spent the greater part of the night together, drinking aguardente de beiju, a spirit distilled from the mandioca root.
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