WOODS USED FOR DYING.
Woods, moreover, used for dying various colours, which are brought into Europe from Brazil, Guayana, and other countries of America, are found in that part of Paraguay, which borders on Brazil. The same may be observed with regard to roots, oils, juices, gums, rosins, kernels, &c.
CARDONES, or CEREI.
To the thistles called tunas, or Indian figs, you may add the cardones, or cerei, the trunk of which is large, and tall, with a spungy, and brittle pulp. In the place of branches and leaves there grow on them other stalks, both thick, and long, which are thorny on every side, full of juice, and straight upright. They bear white flowers, and oval-shaped fruit larger than a goose's egg, which produce a red colour, and are eaten by the Indians with impunity. In the deserts of Paraguay, I have often traversed immense woods of cardones. The honey which bees deposit in them is very famous in Europe. Every part of the cardo is converted into medicinal uses, both by the Europeans, and Americans. There are many species of cardones, of strange, and monstrous forms. Some creep on the ground, others stand upright. The most remarkable is the large, thorny, Peruvian cereus, which is twenty feet high, and one foot thick. Its trunk has various corners, and channels, as it were, together with knobs, and thorns. The bark is green, and the pulp fleshy, and under it lies a ligneous substance, the pith of which is white, and juicy. It bears but few flowers. If you wish to know more of this cereus, it is to be seen in the gardens of princes.
VARIOUS SPECIES OF THE CARAQUATA.
Many species of this plant are commonly to be met with in Paraguay. I will briefly mention those with which I am best acquainted. The caraquatà guazù, or the great caraquatà, is supported by a short thick root. It consists of about twenty very thick leaves, dentated on both sides, remarkably sharp, and about two feet in length, in the midst of which rises a stalk, like a trunk, five, and often more feet high. The top of it is crowned with yellow flowers. The Indian women spin threads of the fibres of the leaves, as others do of flax, or hemp, and weave them into cords, cloths, and nets. But no time, or art can make these threads perfectly white, nor will they hold any colour with which they may be dyed. Creditable authors write that in the province of Guayana such beautiful stockings are woven of this same thread, that they are sometimes preferred to silk ones in France for strength, and softness. Another kind of caraquatà, very like the former, is seen in the woods, but it cannot be spun into threads. In the woods of Mbaèverà, the Indian women who inhabit there make thread, and garments, not of the caraquatà, but of the bark of the tree pinô, after it has been properly cleaned: for the webs woven of the thread of this bark, after being exposed for sometime to the sun, and frequently sprinkled with water, become beautifully white and will retain any colour with which they are dyed, extremely well. It is much to be lamented that this tree pinô is found in the larger woods only, and is not to be seen in many parts of Paraguay. Another caraquatà of a different shape produces a kind of artichoke, or anana. It bears fruit of a scarlet colour, and has plenty of seed contained in a straight slender stalk. It is surrounded with very large leaves, denticulated like a saw, and pointing towards the ground, in the centre of which travellers find a tolerable supply of very clear water, and with it often quench their thirst in dry deserts, where sometimes not a drop of water is to be found. Another caraquatà with leaves very like a sword, and armed on both sides with a threatening row of thorns, bears fruit of a pale yellow within and without, full of black seeds, and pregnant with an acidulated, and pleasant juice. But to extricate this fruit from the many thorns, with which the leaves that guard it are armed, without being wounded, is the labour and the difficulty. Of this fruit mixed with sugar a very wholesome drink, and an excellent medicine for various diseases are made. These, and other kinds of caraquatà are of great use to the Americans. Planted around gardens, and the buildings of estates, they, by their thorns, prevent all secret, and improper access, more effectually than any other kind of hedge, and will survive every inclemency of the weather. Their leaves supply the place of flax in making thread, as well as of tiles in covering temporary huts, and their thorns serve for needles. Their leaves, on being pricked, yield a thick juice which washerwomen use for soap, and when boiled on the fire are fit to be eaten. The Indians look upon the various fruits of the caraquatà as food. From their leaves, when scraped with a knife, flows a sweet liquor, which is thickened on the fire, and condensed into sugar. This liquor of the caraquatà, mixed in water with the seeds of oranges, or lemons, undergoes a vinous fermentation; exposed to the sun it turns to vinegar. By what method, and in what cases, wounds and disorders are healed by the juice of the caraquatà, would be long to tell. A polypodium, preferable in the opinion of physicians to any European one, grows on the caraquatà.
VARIOUS KINDS OF REEDS.
Both in marshy plains, and in the moister woods, you see a great abundance and variety of reeds; some solid, others hollow. Some are as thick as a man's thigh, others scarce equal to his thumb: many which are slenderer than a goose's quill, but full ten yards long, entwine themselves about the neighbouring trees. You commonly meet with reeds of such immense size, that they supply the place of wood in building houses, waggons, and ships, and if cut at proper times would exceed it in hardness and durability. Some made very large flagons, for the purpose of holding wine on a journey, of these reeds, and they answered better than glass, because less fragile. As various kinds of reeds grow in various parts of the province, the Indians ingeniously conjecture the name and country of their savage foes who have been travelling the same way, from the reed of an arrow which they may have chanced to see on the road. We have often crossed woods of wide extent bristling with continual reeds, and have been obliged to pass the night there even, always sleepless, always anxious; for as reeds generally delight in a marshy soil, they are seminaries and abodes of tykes, snakes, gnats and other insects, which are always noisy and stinging, and never spare either the blood or ears of strangers; especially on an impending calm. If a violent wind comes on, the fire at which you sit, being thereby scattered up and down, will set fire to the reeds, which are covered with leaves, and you will be burnt; for no means of extinguishing the flames are at hand, and there are no opportunities of escape. Those reeds which the Germans call Spanish canes, and the Spaniards Indian ones, and which are used for walking-sticks, never grow in Paraguay, though neither rare nor precious in the provinces of North America.
THE SUGAR-CANE.
The sugar-cane flourishes exceedingly in the hotter territories towards the north, if properly cultivated. In the month of August, at the end of winter that is, slips of canes, about one or two feet long, are placed sloping in furrows, at equal distances, and properly ploughed. These gradually rot under ground, and from them a new germ arises, which grows to the height of eight feet, and is cut down in the space of about two months, being perfectly ripe. The longer they are left in the field, the sweeter and thicker becomes their juice, which is afterwards expressed by various methods and machines in America. In Paraguay, the canes, after being stripped of their leaves, are cut into pieces a foot and a half in length. These are thrust by the hand into two large cylinders of very hard wood, which are turned round by two oxen with the help of a great wooden wheel. The juice squeezed out by the tight compression of the cylinders, falls into a boat or cup placed beneath. It is then boiled in a brass pan, more or less, according to the various uses for which the sweet liquor is intended; for if it be used in the same manner as honey, which serves either for food or drink, it is less thickened on the fire, and kept in skins, at the bottom of which, after the liquid part is consumed, you find white crystallized stones, made of the coagulated sugar, which is commonly called the pure and natural sugar-candy; for that yellow candied sugar so full of threads, which is sold in shops, appears to be artificial. But if the liquor expressed from the canes be intended for making sugar, it must be boiled for a long time, and brought to a thick mass. The oftener this is strained through an earthen pan perforated at the bottom, and the longer it is exposed to the sun, the more thoroughly it is purged of the dregs, which flow off into a vessel placed beneath the pan, and the whiter and better sugar it becomes. Of these dregs the Spaniards make either coarser sugar, or aqua vitæ, by liquefying it at the fire drop by drop. For the same purpose others use the canes that have been pressed by the cylinders, but have not had all their juice entirely squeezed out. Observe, moreover, that the pans in which that sweet liquor is daily exposed to the sun are carefully covered with fresh moist mud. All the sugar prepared in Paraguay, and the neighbouring Brazil, has the appearance of wheat flour. That alone is used by the Portugueze; it is transported from Lisbon, in ships, to different places, and made as hard as a stone by aid of chalk, or bull's blood. As the industry of the inhabitants in Paraguay by no means answers to the fertility of the soil, the sugar made there is rarely sufficient for that province, so that no one thinks of exporting any from thence. On the contrary, from the exquisite cultivation of the sugar cane, Brazil derives immense wealth from Europe; it is the chief strength of the Portugueze trade, and a perpetual source of riches. The sugar cane differs from the common reed no otherwise than in having more joints, and a smaller space between each. It is adorned with beautifully green and very large leaves, especially at the top. It is about four inches thick. Though the plant is seven or eight feet high, great part of it towards the top is thrown away, being devoid of juice, and very full of leaves. Sugar canes like a rich and moist soil, nor will they grow much on hills, though well watered. More earth must be heaped on the sugar cane after it has been lately planted in the summer, less in the winter, that it may not bud too much; for the more leaves it bears the less juice it will yield. Weeds, which suck up the moisture of the earth, must be carefully extirpated. Moderate frosts are useful to the full grown canes, because they thicken the sweet liquor; immoderate ones do harm, because they exhaust it all. Ants, which are destructive to the young canes, must be carefully kept away. Many other arts, proper to be used in the rearing and expression of canes, and the converting of them into sugar, I choose to omit for the sake of brevity. I have briefly described the principal ones, that Europeans may be made thoroughly acquainted with the origin of sugar, which they know so well how to consume, and cease to wonder that these reedy sweets, so laboriously prepared in America, should often be sold at such an extravagant price in Europe.