He found them not in arms but in tears:—the Jesuits, though he could not believe it, had brought up the Indians in obedience, and in the love of their King as well as of God,—and, having said their say, they resigned themselves submissively to the orders of their newly-appointed superiors,—giving thanks to the King for having sent a personage of such importance as Bucareli to take care of them. Bucareli met, in fact, with not the slightest opposition from the Indians, in substituting his own system of administration for that of the Jesuits, which he had been amongst the foremost to find fault with.
The efficacy of his own measures may be judged by their result:—he sent them civil governors, and appointed Franciscan friars for their spiritual pastors:—the misrule of the first, and the little respect inspired by the latter, compared with the uniformly exemplary lives of their predecessors, brought about in little more than a quarter of a century, the entire ruin and depopulation of these once happy and prosperous communities. The Indians, as they themselves predicted in their letter to him, when there was no longer sufficient wisdom in their governors to prevent it, were lost both to God and the King.
In saying this I do not pretend to dispute that the institutions of the Jesuits were not, in many points, defective, like all others of man's creation; they were, however, framed under very remarkable and novel circumstances, for which great allowances must be made in any comparison of them with the social systems of Europe; if we look at the good they did, rather than for the evil which they did not, we shall find that, in the course of about a century and a half, upwards of a million of Indians were made Christians by them, and taught to be happy and contented under the mild and peaceful rule of their enlightened and admirable pastors,—a blessed lot compared with the savage condition of the unreclaimed tribes around them.
PARAGUAY,
strictly speaking, has no place in this book, being, as it is for the present, a distinct and separate Republic; but, like the Missions, it is impossible to pass so near it without some allusion to its former prosperity, and to its present very singular condition under the despotic rule of Dr. Francia.
It was in Paraguay that the first conquerors of the country fixed their abode and the seat of their government:—it was there also, attracted by the same inducements of a genial clime and a profusion of natural productions to satisfy all man's wants, that the Jesuit fathers laid the original foundations of their celebrated establishments just spoken of. Its population, before it ceased to be a province subject to the government of Buenos Ayres, was estimated at 200,000 souls, and the yearly value of its surplus produce, exported for consumption to Buenos Ayres and the interior provinces, fell little short of a million and a half of dollars. Eight millions of pounds of Paraguay tea were annually sent to Santa Fé and Buenos Ayres, besides a million of pounds of tobacco, large quantities of timber for every purpose, cotton, sugar, molasses, spirits, and a variety of other articles.
The yerba-maté, or tea, which forms the principal article in the list, is as much in general use and demand throughout all the provinces of La Plata, Chile, and many parts of Peru, as the teas of China are in Europe. The plant which produces it (the Ilex Paraguayensis) is an evergreen about the size of an orange-tree, which grows wild and in great abundance in the dense forests in the northern and eastern parts of the province, whither the people repair yearly in numerous gangs to collect it. The difficulties of penetrating the woods to reach the yerbales, as they are called, are considerable, but they are amply repaid by the certain profits of the adventure. The whole process of preparing and packing it for market is performed on the spot. The tender branches and twigs, being selected, are roasted quickly over a fire till the leaves are crisp; and then, after being partially crushed or pounded, are rammed into hide bags, called serrons, containing 200 lbs. each, which, when sown up, are ready for sale.
The Jesuits cultivated the plant, of which there are three species, in their Missions; and by attention produced a better quality of tea, called caa-mini, than that from the wild plant collected in the woods.
From the practice of reducing the leaf nearly to dust probably originated the general custom in South America of sucking the infusion when made through a tube, at one end of which is a strainer, which prevents the small particles of the tea-leaves from getting into the mouth: it is usually made very strong, very hot, and very sweet with sugar; its properties seem to be much the same as those of the China tea. The Spaniards learned to use it from the Guarani Indians.