For exportation the bark is wrapped in fresh bullock-hides, having been previously sewn up in thick cotton bags containing 155 lbs. each. These hide packages are called serons, a mule-load being 285 lbs., and the transport to the coast costing about ten dollars for each mule-load.
It is to the persevering energy and great talent of that distinguished French botanist Dr. Weddell that we owe our knowledge of the chinchona regions of Bolivia and Southern Peru, and especially of the inestimable quinine-yielding species which he identified as the C. Calisaya. Dr. Weddell accompanied the scientific expedition of the Count de Castelnau, which was sent out by Louis Philippe to South America, and, after crossing the vast empire of Brazil, entered Bolivia by the country of the Chiquitos in August, 1845. It was Dr. Weddell's chief object to examine the chinchona region of this country, and his first step was to proceed to Tarija, to ascertain the extreme southern limit of the chinchona-trees, which he discovered in 19° S. lat. He named the species C. Australis. Dr. Weddell then commenced a thorough exploration of the Bolivian chinchona forests, making his way over the most difficult country, from Cochabamba, through Ayopaya, Enquisivi, and the yungus[80] of La Paz; where the species of chinchonæ continued to multiply under his eye. In Enquisivi he first met with and studied the C. Calisaya, which he named and described, collecting much information respecting the trade, and the methods of collecting bark. In 1847 he entered the province of Capaulican, descending the river Tipuani, where he was attacked by fever, and ascending the Mapiri. At Apollobamba, the centre of the most ancient bark-collecting district, he found that the surrounding forests were quite cleared of chinchona-trees, and that it was necessary to seek for them at a distance of ten or twelve days' journey from any inhabited place. In June 1847 Dr. Weddell entered the Peruvian province of Caravaya, examined the chinchona forests of the valleys of Sandia (San Juan del Oro) and Tambopata, and concluded his investigations by a visit to the lovely ravine of Santa Anna, near Cuzco.
Dr. Weddell was accompanied in his visit to the valleys of Santa Anna by M. Delondre, a manufacturer of quinine at Havre, who, after contemplating the project of paying a personal visit to the chinchona forests for twenty years, had at length set out, landed at Islay in July, 1847, and proceeded by way of Arequipa to Cuzco. M. Delondre appears to have employed a contractor to supply him with bark, who failed in his engagements, and of whom the French quinine manufacturer bitterly complains as a second Dousterswivel.[81] MM. Weddell and Delondre finally left the chinchona forests in September, 1847, and set out for the coast of Peru. Dr. Weddell's valuable monograph on the chinchona genus, 'Histoire naturelle des Quinquinas,' the most important work that has yet appeared on the subject, was published at Paris in 1849.
In 1851 Dr. Weddell undertook a second voyage to South America, and in 1852 he entered the Bolivian chinchona region of Tipuani by way of Sorata. In descending the eastern slopes of the Andes he describes the vegetation as taking new forms at every mile of the descent. The undergrowth was formed of Melastomaceæ with violet-coloured flowers (Chætogastra), myrtles, Gaultherias, and Andromedas; lower down there were many superb species of Thibaudias; and, where the great forests succeed to the smaller growth of the more elevated region, the predominant trees were Escallonias, arborescent Eupatorias, Bocconias, and a fruit-bearing Papilionacea with a scarlet corolla. He encountered the first forest chinchona-trees at an elevation of 7138 feet, being the C. ovata var. α vulgaris. Descending still, he came to paccay-trees (Mimosa Inga) in flower, and met with the first plant of the shrubby variety of C. Calisaya, on an open grassy ridge or pajonal, at an elevation of 4800 feet.
Dr. Weddell descended the river Tipuani to Guanay, a mission of Lecos Indians, and ascended the Coroico in a canoe made of the wood of a species of Bombax. The forests bordering on the river Coroico abounded in many species of palms, chiefly Maximilianas and Iriarteas, the latter a singular kind with a trunk supported on long aërial roots. There were also many trees of C. micrantha on the banks of the Coroico, a species of chinchona, the peculiarity of which is its fondness for the bottoms of valleys and banks of rivers, while most of the others prefer elevated ridges or slopes of the mountains. With it were growing trees of the beautiful Cascarilla magnifolia, an allied genus with deliciously fragrant flowers.
The cascarilleros of Bolivia lead a hard and dangerous life. They only value the C. Calisaya, the other species being for them carhua-carhua, a name given to all the inferior kinds. Those who carry the bark on their shoulders from the interior of the forests receive fifteen dollars for every quintal, and they also have to carry all their provisions and covering for the night. If by any accident they are lost, or their provisions are destroyed, they die of hunger. Dr. Weddell, on one occasion, while ascending the Coroico, landed with the intention of passing the night on a beach well shaded by trees. Here he found the hut of a cascarillero, and near it a man stretched out on the ground in the agonies of death. He was nearly naked, and covered with myriads of insects, whose stings had hastened his end. His face was so swollen as to be wholly unrecognisable, and his limbs were in a frightful state. On the leaves which formed the roof of the hut were the remains of this unfortunate man's clothes, a straw hat and some rags, with a knife, and an earthen pot containing the remains of his last meal, a little maize, and two or three chuñus. Such is the end to which their hazardous occupation exposes the bark-collectors—death in the midst of the forests, far from all friends—a death without help, and without consolation.
Dr. Weddell returned to La Paz by ascending the Coroico, and the results of his second visit to the chinchona forests appeared in an entertaining book of travels.[82] To this able botanist and intrepid explorer science is indebted, to no small extent, for the present state of our knowledge of the chinchona genus.
The C. Calisaya species has been divided by Dr. Weddell into two varieties, namely, a vera and β Josephiana. The former, when growing under favourable circumstances, is a tall tree, often larger round than twice a man's girth, with its leafy head rising above all the other trees of the forest. The leaves are oblong or lanceolate-obovate, pitted in the axils of the veins, with a shining green surface, and reddish veins. The flowers, which hang in large panicles, are a rosy-white colour, with laciniæ rose-colour, and bordered by marginal white hairs. The capsule is smooth, and about twice as long as broad. This tree grows on declivities, and steep rugged places of the mountains, from 4900 to 5900 feet above the sea, in the forests of Enquisivi, Capaulican, Apollobamba, and Larecaja in Bolivia, and of Caravaya in Peru. The trunk may be known by the periderm of the bark, sometimes of a greyish-white, sometimes brown or blackish, being always marked by longitudinal ridges or cracks, a characteristic remarked of no other tree of these forests, excepting one or two of the same family. The taste is strongly bitter, which is apparent directly the tip of the tongue touches it, and, when the exterior receives a cut, a yellow gummy resinous matter exudes from it. The bark comes off with great ease, like peeling a mushroom, while, in the inferior kinds, and above all in the false chinchonas, it strips transversely, and with much greater difficulty. A good tree yields 150 to 175 pounds of dried bark.
The other variety of C. Calisaya, called ychu cascarilla, or cascarilla del pajonal, by the natives, was named Josephiana by Dr. Weddell after the unfortunate French botanist Joseph de Jussieu. It is a shrub, not attaining a greater height than six and a half to ten feet, and growing on open grassy slopes, at much higher elevations than the tree Calisaya. There is another tree variety with a somewhat darker leaf, which Dr. Weddell classed as a distinct species, and called C. Boliviana in 1849, but which he now considers to be a mere variety of C. Calisaya. The other good kinds in the forests of Bolivia and Caravaya are C. micrantha, and two varieties of C. ovata.
Dr. Weddell brought seeds of C. Calisaya to Paris, which were raised in the Jardin des Plantes in 1848, and others in the garden of the Horticultural Society in London, where one of the plants flowered.[83] Many of these plants were given away, and some of them were sent by the Dutch Government to Java.