off with their respective loads.  Having deposited this first load within the precincts of the colony, the peons returned for a second, and so on till they had cleared away the whole mass of branches and of leaves cut and collected during that day.  When I returned to the colony I found the peons coming by two and two, from every part of the valley, all laden in the same way.  There were twenty tatacuas, twenty barbacues, and twenty pies of the yerba cut and ready for manufacture.  Two days after that the whole colony was in a blaze, tatacuas and barbacues were enveloped in smoke; on the third day all was stowed away in the shed; and on the fourth the peons again went out to procure more of the boughs and leaves.”—­(Letters on Paraguay, vol. ii. p. 142-147).

Each peon or laborer, going into the woods for six months, can procure eight arrobas, or 200 lbs. of yerba a day.  This, at the rate of two rials, or 1s. for each arroba, would make his wages per day 8s.; and this for six months’ work, at six days in the week, would produce to the laborer a sum of L57 12s.

Wilcockes, in his “History of Buenos Ayres,” published in 1807, states:—­“Though the herb is principally bought by the merchants of Buenos Ayres, it is not to that place that it is carried, no more being sent thither than is wanted for the consumption of its inhabitants and those of the vicinity; but the greatest part is dispatched to Santa Fe and Cordova, thence to be forwarded to Potosi and Mendoza.  The quantity exported to Peru is estimated at 100,000 arrobas, and to Chile 40,000.  The remainder is consumed in Paraguay, Tucuman, and the other provinces.  It is conveyed in parcels of six or seven arrobas, by waggons, from Santa Fe to Jugui, and thence by mules to Potosi, La Paz, and into Peru proper.  About four piastres per arroba is the price in Paraguay, and at Potosi it fetches from eight to nine, and more in proportion as it is carried further.”

SUGAR.

Sugar is obtained from many grasses; and, indeed, is common in a large number of plants.  It is procured in Italy from Sorghum saccharatum; in China, from Saccharum sinense; in Brazil, from Gynerium saccharoides; in the West Indies, from saccharum violaceum; and in many other parts of the world from S officinarrum.  The last two are commonly known as sugar canes, and they are generally considered as varieties of a single species, S. officinarum, which is now widely spread over different parts of the world.

Some curious specimens of palm sugars were exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851, among others,—­gomuti palm sugar (Arenga saccharifera) from Java; date palm sugar, from the Deccan; nipa sugar, from the stems of Nipa fruticans, and sugar from the fleshy flowers of Bassia latifolia,—­an East Indian tree.

Among the other sugars shown were beet root sugar, maple sugar, date sugar, from Dacca, sugar from the butter tree (Bassia butyracea), produced in the division of Rohekkund, in India; and sugar candy, crystallized by the natives of Calcutta and other parts of India.