When the yerba was thoroughly scorched, the fire was swept from the barbacue or arch; the ground was then swept, and pounded with heavy mallets, into the hardest and smoothest substance.  The scorched leaves and very small twigs were then thrown down from the roof of the arch, and, by means of a rude wooden mill, ground to powder.

The yerba or tea was now ready for use; and being conveyed to a larger shed, previously erected for the purpose, was then received, weighed, and stored by the overseer.  The next and last process, and the most laborious of all, was that of packing the tea.  This was done by first sewing together, in a square form, the half of a bull’s hide, which being still damp, was fastened by two of its corners to two strong trestles, driven far into the ground.  The packer then, with an enormous stick, made of the heaviest wood, and having a huge block at one end, and a pyramidal piece to give it a greater impulse at the other, pressed, by repeated efforts, the yerba into the hide sack, till he got it full to the brim.  It then contained from 200 to 250 pounds, and being sewed up, and left to tighten over the contents as the hide dried, it formed at the end of a couple of days, by exposure to the sun, a substance as hard as stone, and almost as weighty and impervious too.

Having described the process of making ready the yerba for use, we will now accompany Mr. Robertson to the woods, to see how it is collected.

“After all the preparations which I have detailed were completed (and it required only three days to finish them), the peons sallied forth from the yerba colony by couples.  I accompanied two of the stoutest and best of them.  They had with them no other weapon than a small axe; no other clothing than a girdle round their waist and a red cap on their head; no other provision than a cigar, and a cow’s horn filled with water; and they were animated by no other hope or desire, that I could perceive, than those of soon discovering a part of the wood thickly studded with the yerba tree.  They also desired to find it as near as possible to the colonial encampment, in order that the labor of carrying the rough branches to the scene of operations might be as much as possible diminished.

We had scarcely skirted for a quarter of a mile the woods which shut in the valley where we were bivouacked, when we came upon numerous clumps of the yerba tree.  It was of all sizes, from that of the shrub to that of the full-grown orange tree; the leaves of it were very like those of that beautiful production.  The smaller the plant, the better is the tea which is taken from it considered to be.

To work with their hatchets went the peons, and in less than a couple of hours they had gathered a mountain of branches, and piled them up in the form of a haystack.  Both of them then filled their large ponchos with the coveted article of commerce in its raw state, and they marched