He invites the people to purchase fire-rockets by setting off a few now and then at the corner of the plaza. A Creole comes along and gives him so many pounds of cacao for so many rockets, which he takes, knowing he will have to send the cacao to Santa Cruz to get money for it.
I lived with Don Antonio, and mention with confidence and respect, that when we had eggs they were purchased with a handful of salt for two; a wineglass four times filled with sweet oil paid for a chicken; two glasses bought a pound of sugar. A jar of molasses was offered us as a present from the correjidor; and a lady sent a pair of ducks, for which a bottle of sweet wine was returned. In this act Don Antonio displayed the most exquisite gallantry and generosity, so considered by her lady friends next door.
Don Antonio owned the only two boats from the Amazon on the upper waters, which were of the proper build for the falls in the Madeira. He offered me one of his small boats when it returned from the Itenez river, but he had no men. I was obliged to wait and go with him to Brazil to get them.
We met an Englishman here who had made a voyage over the falls in the Madeira and back with Señor Palacios. He also advised me not to trust the Mojos Indians on such a journey. This was discouraging, for I was uncertain how long we might be kept without knowing whether we would eventually succeed or not. This was the dry season, and the proper time to move forward. Should we be delayed until December in this plate, our chances were over until next year.
The Department of the Beni has a population of 30,148 friendly Indians and creoles, of which 6,732 Indian men, between the ages of eighteen and fifty years, and only 325 creoles, pay contribution to the government of two dollars each a year. There are 985 men in this department over fifty years of age, and they are excused from paying this tax, as well as the women and children.
The government of Bolivia settles accounts with the church for the Indians out of the annual income of $13,464. The Indians pay this tax in cotton table cloths, sheets, hamacs, towels, ponchos, and pieces of cotton goods made by their own hands. They cultivate maize and coffee, tobacco, yuca, oranges, plantains, lemons, and papayas; cocoa grows wild along the rivers; rice is raised in small quantities.
A home-made tablecloth is worth three dollars; there were over seven hundred exported last year from this department. A pair of sheets costs five dollars and fifty cents; a hamac, five; a towel, two. Over three thousand yards of Indian domestic cotton cloth were also exported last year, at thirty-one and a quarter cents a yard; dry hides are valued at twelve and a half cents; tiger skins, two dollars; straw hats, from fifty cents to one dollar; coffee, three dollars; tamarinds, two dollars; tobacco, one dollar and twenty-five cents; and cocoa, two dollars the arroba of twenty-five pounds; prepared chocolate is worth eighteen and three-quarter cents a pound.
It is difficult to estimate the annual yield of cacao—last year over eight thousand arrobas were sent to the people on the Andes. Horned cattle on the pampa are worth two dollars a head. A few Brazil nuts are brought into the market of Trinidad, where they sell at one dollar the arroba.
This is a list of the exports from the very bottom of the Madeira Plate—all of which are sent out against the current and up the sides of the Andes. There are a few Indians in Yuracares who pay contribution in cinchona bark; it has to be entered at the sub-treasury here; forty arrobas have come down in a year. The Indian is allowed eight dollars and seventy five cents the arroba when it is forwarded to the Pacific ocean.
While the door of this interior is at the head of the Madeira river, the people go back up-stairs, and pass their goods and chattels over the roof, down through the chimney, to the Pacific; stemming the current, and struggling against difficulties among the clouds, through storms and dangers, passing through cold, frozen regions, on the way to market; leaving a most productive country road, and passing through one less and less valuable, until they get into a desert, the off-side of which may be approached by a ship; while Don Antonio has brought his vessels from the Atlantic ocean, and is trying to sell them the very articles they are struggling for at such great expense from the other direction. He has brought a cargo of glassware and Pennsylvania iron up the Madeira, while they seem to insist upon getting New England tools over the Andes. He expresses to me the great difficulty he finds in selling his cargo. The creoles seem perfectly contented with the trade as it is; some of them have gone so far as to express an opinion that, should commerce be made to flow through the Madeira, it will destroy their present prosperity.