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312

MULES AND ASSES.

PART III.

the young ass is covered with the skin of her own offspring for some days, the more effectually to hide the deceit.

The mares are generally soon reconciled to the offspring thus surreptitiously imposed on them, and bring them up as their own; and care being taken to separate them from the males of their own species, they become habituated to the asses, and in due time a cross takes place between them, the produce of which is the mule. It is a singular fact that asses so brought up amongst mares will not herd with the females of their own kind; attachment to the foster-mother seems to be nature's law in these cases, and entirely to supersede any feeling for the race of the male parent. Thus the ass which is suckled by the mare will always herd with horses in preference to the individuals of his own species, and so will mules, which apparently disdain all intercourse with their male progenitors and their own kind. Of course I am speaking of them in a state of nature and before they are domesticated.

The same rule holds very remarkably with regard to some of their habits: for example, the mule will take to the water spontaneously, and swim like a horse, which asses will not do-indeed, it is a most difficult matter to get them to cross a river, which in the countries of South America very much diminishes the value of the services of these animals, and their price in consequence.

Nevertheless, in his natural state the ass is a brave animal, and when surrounded by the brood mares with which he is associated in the pastures of the Pampas is ready to do battle for them with any enemy, however formidable. Woe be to any stray horse that makes his appearance amongst them; he has no chance against the ass, who fights with extraordinary fury when once excited. Even the jaguar, the terror of all other animals of the Pampas, is often worsted by his courage and instinctive tact: unable to cope with him face to face, he suffers him to spring upon his crupper, and then, putting his head between his legs to save his neck and throat (which it is the tiger's first object always to seize), throws himself

backwards upon the ground with all his force, so as often to break some of the bones of his assailant, and in that disabled state he has been known to destroy him with his powerful teeth. Such conflicts have been often witnessed by the gauchos in charge of the mares.

*

The struggle for independence stopped the trade in mules, for the Upper Provinces and the greater part of Peru being in possession of the Royalists to the last, all intercourse with Salta was cut off for many years, nor has there been sufficient encouragement to renew it since the restoration of peace. The people of Alto Peru, however, must have mules, and it does not appear that they are likely to be supplied with them from any other quarter.

Proceeding eastward through the valleys of Campo Santo, and those watered by the Lavayen and its affluents, to Oran, a town founded in 1793, after Cornejo's exploration of the Vermejo, and throughout all that department, a tropical vegetation is found in all its natural luxuriance. Forests of noble trees † stud the banks of the rivers, and extend far down the shores of the Vermejo, valuable not only as timber, but as producing fruits which may be said to supply the place of bread and wine to the natives: such, amongst others, is the algaroba or carob tree, a sort of acacia, from the fruit of which, a large bean growing in clusters of pods, mixed with maize, the Indians make cakes; and, by fermentation, produce the chicha, a strong intoxicating liquor. The palm-tree, and the plant which produces the maté, or Paraguay tea, are alike indigenous there, and many others, as yet only known to us by their Indian names, which it would be useless to recapitulate. The cactus, bearing the cochineal insect, and the aloe are found in every direction. From the macerated fibres of the latter the Indians of the Chaco make yarn and

* Molina gives a somewhat similar account in describing the Puma of Chile. He says, "Should the puma succeed in leaping upon his back, the ass immediately throws himself on the ground and endeavours to crush him, or runs with all his force against the trunks of trees, holding his head down to save his throat: by which means he generally succeeds in freeing himself from his assailant."-Molina's Hist. of Chile.

+ When Soria descended the Vermejo in 1826, it was deemed a good opportunity to send a collection of the various woods of these regions to Buenos Ayres, that they might be examined and more properly described; and he told me he had no less than seventy-three different specimens with him, which were taken from him, with everything else, by Dr. Francia, in Paraguay.

314

THE ALOE AND ITS USES.

PART III.

ropes, which are found less liable to rot in water than hemp. Their fishing-nets are all made of this material, and a variety of bags and pouches, for which there is always a demand amongst their more civilised neighbours: these articles are variously dyed in indelible colours, prepared also by the Indians. There is no doubt that this plant, which grows so abundantly in most parts of South America, might be turned, here as elsewhere, to very considerable account for many useful purposes. I have in my possession some paintings done in Peru upon a good canvas cloth made of it by the natives, which could not be distinguished from any similar tissue of European make.

At Buenos Ayres, where the hedgerows are generally formed of the common aloe, I had an opportunity of trying various experiments with it, and had some cordage made from it of beautiful texture and whiteness by some sailors from one of his Majesty's ships. I also tried my hand at making pulqué, after seeing Mr. Ward's account of the manner in which it is made in Mexico; but, though we obtained an abundance of the liquor, following the process described by him of taking out the stem as soon as it began to shoot, and collecting the sap as it accumulated in the socket or basin beneath, it was never sufficiently palatable to our tastes to be drinkable; but this probably was from our want of experience in the mode of preparing it: however, I have no doubt that consumers enough might be found of this or any other such beverage amongst a people who can drink so filthy a preparation as the chicha, the liquor in common use amongst the natives of the united provinces, the principal ingredient of which in the Upper Provinces and in the Andean Provinces of Peru and Bolivia is maize chewed by old Indian women; a disgusting process, but which renders it, I am told, more easy of fermentation in those cold regions.

*

In some of those saline and arid districts, where no

In 1834 a series of trials was made at Toulon in order to ascertain the comparative strength of cables made of hemp and of the aloe (brought from Algiers), which resulted greatly in favour of the

latter. Of cables of equal size, that made from the aloe raised a weight of 2000 kilogrammes, that of hemp a weight of only 400.

CHAP. XVIII. COCA, SUGAR, COTTON, AND TOBACCO.

315

other fresh water is to be found, there grows a plant, I believe an aloe or cactus, well known to the natives, from which, on an incision being made in one of the thickest leaves, a clear stream will spurt out sufficient to allay the traveller's thirst. In Yrala's first march from the Paraná to Peru, Schmidel, who was one of the party, mentions that but for the discovery of these water-bearing plants the Spaniards would have perished from thirst in crossing the sterile and desert countries they had to traverse.*

In many parts of Oran is grown the celebrated cuca, or coca, plant (Erythroxylon Peruvianum), sometimes called el arbol del hambre y de la sed," the tree of hunger and thirst;" to the natives more necessary than bread. Hungry or weary, with some leaves of coca to chew, mixed with a little lime or alkali of his own preparation, the Peruvian Indian seems to care for no other sustenance: he never swallows it, but is perpetually chewing it, as the Asiatics do the betel-nut; give him but his bag full of this, with a little roasted maize, and he will undertake the hardest labour in the mines, and, as a courier, perform the most astonishing journeys on foot, frequently travelling a hundred leagues across the snowy and desolate regions of the Cordillera.

In the valleys watered by the Jujuy and its tributaries, as in many other parts of the republic, the indigo grows wild, and the sugar-cane and tobacco are extensively cultivated, the two latter being produced in sufficient quantity not only for the consumption of the whole of the province of Salta, but for exportation to the rest of the upper provinces, and occasionally to Chile. Cotton, also, is grown there in considerable quantities, and of a quality which, if cleaned, would be prized in the markets of Europe, -as indeed would be nearly all the valuable productions of this highly favoured region.

Although in this, as in every other part of the republic, the want of population may be considered as the great drawback to the full development of its natural resources, the Salteños, and especially those in the eastern districts

* See note at page 38, and Schmidel, chap. 46.

316

INDIAN LABOUR IN ORAN

PART III.

of the province, obtain assistance to a considerable extent in the cultivation of their lands from the Indians of the Mataco nation, who live upon the shores of the Vermejo, below the junction of the Jujuy.

These Indians, now an independent people, acknowledging no other authority than that of their own Caciques, were in former times reduced, in a certain degree, to civilised habits by the Jesuits, the fruits of whose influence are still perceptible in their occasional intercourse with their Christian neighbours, amongst whom they repair at the seasons of sowing and harvest to barter their labour in exchange for articles of clothing, and beads and baubles for their women.

a

They are very industrious, and in the allotment of work will undertake double the daily task of the Creoles--the payment they receive for a month's work is from ten to fifteen yards of very coarse cloth or baize, the cost of which at Salta may be about a quarter of Spanish dollar, or about a shilling a yard :--with this and their food they are perfectly content, and, at a similar rate, any number of them might be induced to leave their own haunts periodically to work in the sugar and tobacco plantations of the Spaniards. I was told by an Englishman, Mr. Cresser, who descended the Vermejo with Soria, and had been long resident at Oran, that many hundreds of them are yearly engaged at the rate above stated to get in the crops in the vicinity of that place.

When to this low rate at which productive labour may be obtained, we add the existence, now indisputably established, of an uninterrupted navigation the whole way from Oran to the Paraná, and thence to Buenos Ayres, it is impossible not to be struck with the very great natural advantages possessed by this province, and with the very small degree of energy apparently requisite on the part of the natives to turn them to the fullest account.

It is their own fault alone if the sugar and tobacco, the cotton, the indigo, and cochineal of Oran, do not vie with those of Brazil and Columbia in the markets of Europe. Let the people of these countries open their eyes to the importance of their own resources, and let them not ima

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