The temperate parts abound with all kinds of grain, beans, pease, melons, cucumbers, and European vegetables; asparagus is found wild, and there is a remarkably fine sort of vine, of which good and healthy wine is made, magueys, sugar-cane, maize, from which the Indians make their favourite drink; potatoes, a fruit resembling the almond, which produces an excellent oil; the European fruits; tobacco, and cinchona, or Jesuit's bark, sarsaparilla, rhubarb, jalap, sassafras, guiacum, dragon's blood, cupay, whose oil is used in medicine, nux vomica, vanilla, cacao, the timbabi, supplying a fine yellow gum, which is run into moulds, and formed into beads, necklaces, crosses, &c. Cedar, the curi or pine, from whose red knots, which contain a varnish, the Indians make images; the algarrobo, or carob tree, which is converted into bread, and the Paraguay tea or matté, a plant which rises about a foot and a half high, with slender branches, and leaves something like those of senna; of this there are two kinds, one called Paraguay, the other Caamina, or Yervacamini, which last sells for one-third more than the other.
So useful is this western tea, that the mines would stand still, if the owners were to neglect to supply the workmen with it; and every person in Peru, Chili, and Buenos Ayres, consider themselves wretched, if not able to procure it; two millions of piastres worth of this herb, being sold from the province of Paraguay every year. It is infused and made nearly in the same way as Chinese tea, excepting that the branches are put in with the leaves, and that it is drank out of the vessel it is made in, through a silver or glass pipe, as soon as possible; as if it stays too long, it is supposed not to be good. The smell, and colour of this drink, is nearly as fine as that of the best Indian teas.
The pomegranate, peach, fig, lemon and orange, flourish in Paraguay, as do the cocoa-nut and other palms. The native fruits have among them the jujuba, the chanar, the yacani, the quabira, from which candles are made for the churches; the quembe yielding a delicious pulp; the mammon growing on the trunk of a tree, and resembling a melon; the tatay, having a fruit like the mulberry; the alaba, with a delicious fruit; the anguay, whose pips are of a rich violet colour and triangular shape, are used by the Indian women for necklaces; the tarumay resembling the olive; the molle, yielding a fragrant gum; the bacoba, banana, anana, manioc, the cotton tree, which grows to a great size and is very common; the zevil, whose bark is used in tanning; the ceibo, with flowers of a purple colour; the izapa, whose leaves distil a copious supply of water; the ant-tree, which is the chosen resort of these insects; the umbu, with an immense and spreading head; the willow; the ambay, used in striking fire; the arucuy, a shrub yielding a strong scarlet dye; indigo, cochineal, nacalic, whose beautiful yellow is used by dyers and painters, and reeds of great size, besides an infinite number of other trees and plants, all useful in their kind, and an immense assemblage of beautiful flowers.
The wild animals of Paraguay are chiefly found in the mountain regions bordering on the Great River, and on Brazil, where the forests are of impenetrable thickness. The jaguar, the puma or the cougar, and the black bear, are large and very fierce, destroying the cattle whenever they are exposed to their ravages. The ant-bear is a common animal, feeding principally on ants, which it catches, by placing its long tongue on their nests; and the tapir, the water-pig, or capibara, the river-cavies, and various other amphibious animals, frequent its numerous rivers. Mosquitos and other venomous insects are the great plagues of this fine country, and about twenty kinds of serpents, of which, the rattle-snake is the most common, and the boa constrictor the largest, frequent its woods and plains.
In Paraguay, the bird tribes are also very numerous, and possess the charms of song and beauty of plumage, in a degree equal, if not superior to those of any part of South America. Of these, nine different kinds of the humming-bird alone have been enumerated.
But the largest bird seen in the plains of Paraguay, is the great cassowary or American ostrich, remarkable for its immense size, fine plumage, and swift motion.
The fertility of Paraguay is proverbial, and though no mines are worked in it, it is one of the most opulent governments of Buenos Ayres, on account of its various vegetable productions, and the immense herds of horses, mules, cattle and sheep, which pasture on its extensive plains.
Of this government, the southern parts are those which are best known and most inhabited; the northern bordering on the Brazilian frontiers, and reaching to the great inundation of the Paraguay, have been little explored, and are tenanted only by the aborigines and wild animals.
The great features of this country are the numerous rivers, swamps, lakes, plains and woods, with which it abounds. Its largest and most noted rivers being the Paraguay, the Parana, the Porrudos, Mbotely, Tobati, Ipane Piray in the north parts, and in the south the Cañabe and Tibiquari, the latter of which, divides the government from that of Buenos Ayres.