M. da Luz had invited us to inspect his tea-grounds near Nossa Senhora da Penha, and I went thither, accompanied by Messrs. Barandier and Houlet. The cultivation is admirable, the soil excellent, and the tea-plants peculiarly vigorous. Each shrub was so placed that a man can easily go all round it, and young plants, self-sown, were springing up below every old one; of these offsets, I was made welcome to as many as I could take away, and should have had a great stock, but that the ground had been very recently cleared. M. da Luz showed me his magazines of prepared tea, which were extensive and well stocked.
Hence I went to the property of a lady, Donna Gertrude Gedioze Larceda, situated at the foot of Jarigur, a mountain famed for its gold mines, and passed two days in exploring this celebrated locality, and then visited the Colonel Anastosio on my way back to St. Paul. These plantations are in the most prosperous condition, situated on a sloping and well-manured tract behind the habitations. The shrubs are generally kept low, and frequently cut, so as to, make them branching, by which the process of picking the leaves is rendered easier. There may be 60,000 or 70,000 plants, but a third of them were only set a year before. Every arrangement is excellently conducted here; the pans kept very clean, though perhaps rather thin from long use and the fierceness of the fires. But the general good order that prevails, speaks much in favor of the tea produced in this neighbourhood. The colonel showed me his warehouse, where the tea is stored in iron jars, narrow-necked and closed by a tight fitting stopper. I ventured to put some questions to Colonel Anastosio respecting the sale of the produce. He gave me to understand that he was by no means eager to sell; but, confident of the good quality, he waited till application was made to him for it, as the tea is thought to improve by time, and the price is kept up by there being a small supply. With respect to the cost of its production in Brazil, he said, this was so great that, to make it answer to the grower, a price of not less than 2,000 reis, about six francs (5s.), must be got for each pound. The whole labor in Brazil is done by slaves, who certainly do not cost much to keep, but who, on the other hand, work as little as they can help, having no interest in the occupation. The slaves, too, bear a high price, and the chances of mortality, with the exorbitant value of money in Brazil, augment their selling value.
The Major da Luz kindly presented me with 300 young tea-plants, which he had caused his negroes to pull up for me; and in an adjoining farm, where an immense tract planted with tea is now allowed to run to waste, being no object of value to the proprietor, I was permitted to take all I could carry away; and in a single day's time, M. Houlet and I, aided by some slaves, succeeded in possessing ourselves of 3,000 young plants, which we carefully arranged in bamboo baskets (here called cestos). To diminish the weight, M. Houlet removed as little soil as possible; but carefully wetted the roots before closing the baskets, and covered them with banana leaves. In one garden, the largest I have seen devoted to the growth of tea, but which is not particularly well kept, I saw that the spaces between the shrubs were planted with maize, and the bordering of the squares which intersect this vast plantation, and the whole of which is inclosed with valleys of Araucaria Brasiliensis, is formed of little dwarf tea-plants, which are kept low by cutting their main shoots down to the level of the soil.
On the 8th of February I again embarked in the steam-boat to return to Rio Janeiro, and when we came in sight of St. Sebastian, I left M. Houlet to proceed to the city alone, charging him to take the very greatest care of our package of tea-plants, as well as of the nursery-ground at St. Theresa, while I should visit the flourishing colony of Ubatuba, inhabited by French families, who cultivate most successfully coffee, and other useful vegetables. After a delightful sail through an archipelago of enchanting islands, I landed at Pontagrossa, where I was most kindly received, and spent a week, obtaining much and varied information, both respecting cultivated plants and the kinds of trees which grow spontaneously in the virgin forests of this lovely land, and afford valuable woods for building, cabinet work, and dyeing. Finally, I visited the tea plantations of M. Vigneron, which are remarkably fine, though their owner finds a much more profitable employment in the growth of coffee, which is very lucrative. He kindly gave me a quantity of young tea-plants and chocolate trees. Reluctantly quitting these worthy colonists, I re-embarked in a Brazilian galliot, which took me back to Rio Janeiro in the close of February. There I found the tea-plants from St. Paul, set by M. Houlet, in our garden at St. Theresa, and I added to them the stock I had brought from Ubatuba. All the very young ones had perished on the way, from the excessive heat, and M. Houlet had much difficulty in saving the others.
M. Guillemin concludes his interesting narration with this partially discouraging fact;—that though the culture of the tea-shrub succeeds perfectly well in Brazil; though the gathering of the foliage proceeds with hardly any interruption during the entire year; though the quality (setting aside the aroma, which is believed to be artificially added) is not inferior to that of the finest tea from China—still the growers have not realised any large profits. They have manufactured an immense quantity of tea, to judge by what he saw in the warehouses at St. Paul, but they cannot afford to sell it under six francs for the half kilogramme (a pound weight), which is higher than Chinese tea of equally good quality. This is, however, precisely one of those commodities in which free labour, that is, the labor of a free peasant's family, the wife and children, the young and the old, can successfully compete with slave labor, and considerably undersell it. It is manifest, from the remarks of M. Guillemin, that the cost for plantation slaves, under a system apparently so profitable as labor without wages, is a dead weight on the Brazilian planter."
Paraguay Tea.—A species of holly (Ilex Paraguensis), which grows spontaneously in the forest regions of Paraguay, and the interior of South America, furnishes the celebrated beverage called Yerba Mate, in South America. The evergreen leaf of this plant is from four to five inches long; when prepared for use as tea it is reduced to powder, and hence the decoction has to be quaffed by means of a tube with a bulb perforated with small holes.
The leaves yield the same bitter principle called theine, which is found in the leaf of the Chinese tea-plant, the coffee berry, &c. Various other species of Ilex are sometimes employed in other parts of South America for a similar purpose. Although the leaves may not contain as much of the agreeable narcotic oil as those of the China shrub, in consequence of the rude way in which it is collected and prepared for use, yet it is much relished by European travellers in South America, and would doubtless enter largely into consumption if imported into this country at a moderate rate of duty.
The consumption in the various South American Republics is estimated at thirty or forty millions of pounds annually. It is generally drank without sugar or milk.
There are no correct data for calculating the exports, but some authorities state the amount sent to Santa Fe and Buenos Ayres at eight millions of pounds.