THE AMBAỸ.
The ambaỹ, a kind of wild fig, grows pretty high in the course of a few months. The body of the tree is slender, and perforated like an elder; the bark such as is peculiar to figs; and the wood white like that of a birch, but so soft that it may be cut with a knife. It has few boughs, but is adorned with very large leaves, for the lively verdure of which it is greatly commended, as well as for the salubrity of its bark, juice, and leaf, which, applied in various ways, stop running of the reins, too copious discharges, and looseness of the bowels.
THE WALNUT.
Walnuts, no ways differing from those of our own country, are very common in the woods of Tucuman, but scarce seen in other parts of Paraguay. Their wood is employed in making pistol-cases, handles, and for other kinds of cabinet-maker's work. The nuts are of different sorts, for some are very large, with a soft rind, others quite dwarfish, and with rinds as hard as a stone.
THE URUCUỸ.
The urucuỹ, which is half shrub half tree, resembles a hazle in the whiteness of its wood, and the blackness of its bark. Its leaves are rather large, and heart-shaped. The flowers, which are composed of five white petals, tinged with red, are about the size of a common rose, but have no scent whatever. For fruit it bears pods, which are green at first, and afterwards red, each containing about forty grains the size of peas, but plain on both sides, and with a white pulp, like the seeds of apples. The surface of them is of a deep bright red, and immediately dyes the hands of all who touch it with that colour. The pods, when ripe, burst open of themselves. These grains, either dry or fresh, supply the place of vermillion: when pounded, and sprinkled with water, they are used by the savages, sometimes for painting their bodies, sometimes for dying or staining cloth, vessels, or other things. This scarlet colour, when a thing is once tinctured with it, adheres pertinaciously, if the grains of the urucuỹ, steeped in water, be mixed with alum or urine. The same grains are thrown into boiling water, and of the colour that settles at the bottom cakes are made, which the women in Europe paint their faces with, and painters and dyers use for other purposes. They are used also both as food and medicine, variously prepared and mixed. Of the bark some weave cables, cords, and ropes, stronger than hempen ones.
THE AÑIL, OR INDIGO.
That mass of blue colour which the Spaniards call añil, or añir, and other Europeans, indigo, is made of a plant, with a long slender root, branching out into a number of shoots; on which account its long stalks partly creep on the ground, and partly stand upright. They are red on one side, and are loaden with small boughs, and round leaves, about the size of one's little finger nail, of a dark green, on one side, and a silvery white on the other. The little blossoms of this plant are of a palish red, with flowers like a husk of corn, or as others explain it, like an open helmet: and are succeeded by pods, hanging from the stalk, full of an olive-coloured seed, very like rape seed. The leaves of the plant, when perfectly mature, are gathered in bundles, pounded in stone mortars in the first place, and next steeped, and turned about in a pan of tepid, or as others say, cold water. They use them poured out on a wooden table, surrounded with a high wooden brim, and hollowed here and there into ditches. After the water has escaped, the thicker part of the colour settles into those ditches, coagulates, and hardens. The solid particles are then taken out, and dried for many days; for the dryer they are, the nearer they approach to that colour which we call Venetian blue. Those who dyed webs, or garments with that colour in Paraguay, mixed children's urine, instead of alum, with it, to prevent the colour from flying. The plant añil is sown in other places, and grows spontaneously in the plains of Paraguay, but is generally neglected, the industry of the inhabitants seldom answering to the liberality of nature. I never had the least doubt but this plant might be cultivated in those countries of Europe where the climate is milder. The seed must be sown in a soft, and well-tilled soil. The young plants must be removed, like lettuce, and cabbage, and placed at proper distances: great care must likewise be taken to prevent their being choked with weeds.
COCHINILLA.
The Paraguayrian cochineal is produced by winged insects, which sit continually on certain little thistles, and suck their juice. There are many kinds of these thistles, which differ from one another in their form, and fruit. The plant on which the cochineal is found, is called tuna by the Spaniards, and opuntia by botanists. From a very short root rises a thick stalk, sometimes four-cornered, green, crooked, with a white fragile pulp, and covered with thorns: on this, instead of boughs and leaves, grow other stalks, the same as the former, very long, and extremely full of juice. Yellow flowers are succeeded by fruit of a red colour, larger than a common fig, with a sweet, and at the same time, rather acid flavour, which renders them very delightful to the palate. Their pulp is full of small, black seeds, like grape stones, and when peeled has a delicious taste. From these shrubs therefore, the women collect cochineal, which consists of very small, white, fluid particles, closely resembling moss. Most of the particles are made into small, round cakes, and, after exposure to the air, become red and hard. Nothing further is requisite to fit them for painting, and dying. The Jesuit priest of the Guarany town Nuestra Senhora de Sta. Fè, took care to have the tuna thistle planted in a large garden, that they might not be obliged to seek the cochineal necessary for his town in distant plains. When the thistles were grown up, those winged insects, resembling bugs, were carried by the Indians from the plain, and scattered up and down, with more than the desired success; for so abundant, and so excellent was the cochineal collected from them, that it was anxiously bought, at any price, by the neighbouring priests, for the use of their towns; because it was of a deeper, and brighter red, than that of the plains, and the woods, and was, moreover, scented with citron juice. In succeeding years, the same Father prevented all access to the town by means of these thistles, that the equestrian savages, who had committed much carnage amongst them, might not be so easily able to approach it. This kind of living hedge, which the Spaniards use both in their gardens and estates, became not only a means of security, but at the same time, an ever fertile nursery of cochineal, which, as well as a most beautiful paint, affords the Paraguayrians a medicine for strengthening the heart, creating perspiration, and counteracting poison; so that it may be safely, and usefully mixed with vinegar, and other seasoning liquors.