Peruvian bark

“ The bark of the willow has, indeed, been justly considered as a succedaneum for Peruvian bark, as has also that of the horse-chestnut-tree, the leaf of the holly, the snake-root, etcetera. It was evidently necessary to make trial of this substance, although not so valuable as Peruvian bark, and to employ it in its natural state, since they had no means for extracting its essence. ”

“ The measures adopted by the Spanish Government towards the end of the last century, in sending botanical expeditions to explore the chinchona forests in other parts of their vast South American possessions, led to the discovery of additional valuable species, the introduction of their barks into commerce, and the reduction of the pressure on the Loxa forests, which were thus relieved from being the sole source whence Peruvian bark could be supplied to the world. ”

“ There is no pasture for our mules; they are confined to the path by the dense growth of bushes and vines, and are kept near all night by fencing the track on both sides. Upon inquiring of Leechler the number of inhabitants, he informed me a few men were gathering Peruvian bark in the woods, but it was difficult to tell where they were, as the cinchona trees are thinly scattered over the country. The bark is represented as inferior near the base of the Andes here. The best quality sells at twenty-five dollars the hundred pounds in the market of Cuzco. ”

“ I conversed with an intelligent and manly Frenchman named Escudero. 115 His account of the seeking and gathering of Peruvian bark was exceedingly interesting; and I should judge that it is an occupation which involves much fatigue and exposure. He spoke very highly of the mechanical abilities of my countryman, Miguel Hacket, and gave me a letter to deliver to him wherever I might find him. ”

“ Like other coast departments, Piura extends inland to the valleys of the Amazon headwaters, and includes in its territory not only the cotton fields of the coast, but the mines of the sierra, the pastures of the uplands, and the coffee, tobacco, and sugar-cane of the Montaña. The province of Ayabaca has gold mines, forests in which the valuable Peruvian bark is found, pastures for cattle and sheep, and plantations of coffee and sugar-cane. In the district of Frias, every town is a rose garden, and bee-keeping is a flourishing industry. ”

“ Charles-Marie de la Condamine, while occupied in common with Bouguer and Godin, as an astronomer from 1736 to 1743, in measuring the arc of a degree near Quito, availed himself of the opportunity to investigate the origin of the famous Peruvian Bark. On the 3rd and 4th of February, 1737, he visited the Sierra de Cajanuma, 21⁄2 leagues from Loxa, and there collected specimens of the tree now known as Cinchona officinalis var. a. Condaminea. At that period the very large trees had already become rare, but there were still specimens having trunks thicker than a man’s body. ”

“ Poeppig, writing in 1830, says that in the Peruvian province of Huanuco the people, who are much subject to tertian agues, have a strong repugnance to its use. The Indian thinks that the cold north alone permits the use of fever-bark; he considers it as very heating, and therefore an unfit remedy in complaints which he believes to arise from inflammation of the blood. [6] Humboldt also notices this repugnance to using the bark amongst the natives; and Mr. Spruce makes the same observation with respect to the people of Ecuador and New Granada. ”

“ The Peruvian supply is practically exhausted through the destructive methods employed in collecting the bark, and the world now depends chiefly on Bolivia and Ecuador. The forests of eastern Peru are rich in fine cabinet woods, but their inaccessibility renders them of no great value. Among the best known of them are cedar, walnut, ironwood and caoba, a kind of mahogany. Many of the forest trees of the upper Amazon valley of Brazil are likewise found in Peru. ”

“ Their life is a hard one; they suffer great privations and expose themselves to great dangers, proceeding in quest of bark trees over high mountain passes, to regions far from the habitations of men. The life of the cascarillero, if less exciting, is not less perilous than that of the chamois-hunter of the Alps; and the scenes amidst which it is spent, are more varied, and at least as grand and awful. Before reaching the region where they propose to search for bark trees, the cascarilleros often pass over the highest ridges of the Andes. ”

“ As it was, the spoil of the barks so easily taken contented him. Now he was bound for Lima. Along the way he fell in with a bark which, being boarded and rifled, produced a good store of linen cloth. When as much of this stuff as was desired had been taken the bark was cast off. ”

“ The supply of the bark of Chinchona Calisaya trees is now entirely procured from the forests of Munecas, Apollobamba, Yuracares, Larecaja, Inquisivi, Ayopaya, and the yungus of La Paz in Bolivia; but I found that the difficulties in the way of making a collection of plants and seeds in these districts would be very great, and it afterwards turned out that these difficulties would have been insurmountable. As a considerable part of the revenue of Bolivia is derived from the bark trade, which is not the case in Peru, the Bolivians are exceedingly jealous of their monopoly ”

“ Nearly all the native live stock of Peru is of Spanish origin, the first horses, cattle, and sheep having been imported at the time of the Conquest. The llama, alpaca, and vicuña are, of course, of Andean origin. The Peruvian horses are descendants of the Arab stock, the best specimens being reared on the coast, though there is ample opportunity for increasing both the quality and the number of good horses in the inter-Andean region, and, especially, on the higher slopes of the Montaña. ”

“ Such is the end to which their hazardous occupation exposes the bark-collectors—death in the midst of the forests, far from home; a death without help and without consolation.
It was not until after passing the elevated site of San Pedro, and clambering up the slippery shoulders of the hill called Huaynapata—the crossing of half a dozen intervening streamlets going for nothing—that the explorers were rewarded with a sight of their Canaan, the bark-producing region. To attain this summit of Huaynapata, however, the little tributary of Mendoza had to be first got over. ”

“ It seems that the Mangeromas often poison the streams below the drinking places in order to get rid of their enemies. In the present case there had been a rumour that a party of Peruvian rubber-workers might be coming up the creek, and this is always a signal of trouble among these Indians. Although you cannot induce a Brazilian to go into the Indian settlements or malocas, the Peruvians are more than willing to go there, because of the chance of abducting girls. ”

“ The employment of domestic animals distinguished the Peruvians from the other races of the New World. This economy of human labor by the substitution of the brute is an important element of civilization, inferior only to what is gained by the substitution of machinery for both. Yet the ancient Peruvians seem to have made much less account of it than their Spanish conquerors, and to have valued the llama, in common with the other animals of that genus, chiefly for its fleece. ”

“ The wearing of bark has sometimes been kept up as a sign of primitive simplicity. Thus in India it is written in the laws of Manu that when the grey-haired Brahman retires into the forest to end his days in religious meditation, he shall wear a skin or a garment of bark. A ruder people, the Kayans of Borneo, while in common life they like the smart foreign stuffs of the trader, when they go into mourning throw them off and return to the rude native garment of bark-cloth. ”

“ The species yielding "red bark," the richest and most important of all the Chinchonæ, is found in the forests on the western slopes of Mount Chimborazo, along the banks of the rivers Chanchan, Chasuan, San Antonio, and their tributaries. So early as 1738 Condamine spoke of "red bark" (cascarilla colorada) as being of superior quality; [48] and Pavon sent home specimens of the "red bark of Huaranda," and named the species C. succirubra. ”

“ On this spot he received more explicit tidings of the Peruvian empire, heard proofs recounted of its civilization, and was shown drawings of the llama, which, to the European eye, seemed a species of the Arabian camel. But, although he steered his caravel for these golden realms, and even pushed his discoveries some twenty leagues south of the Gulf of St. Michael, the adventure was not reserved for him. The illustrious discoverer was doomed to fall a victim to that miserable jealousy with which a little spirit regards the achievements of a great one. ”

“ Some time after this, I learned that two Peruvians had been caught in a trap set for the purpose. The unfortunate men had spent a whole night in a pit, nine feet deep, and were discovered the next forenoon by a party of hunters, who immediately killed them with unpoisoned, big-game arrows. In contrast to the North-American Indians they never torture captives, but kill them as quickly as possible.
I had plenty of opportunity to investigate the different kinds of traps used by the Mangeromas for catching Peruvian caboclos or half-breeds. ”

“ It is true that after the seed-time Manco came back and once more encompassed the city with innumerable legions, but meanwhile the Spaniards had stripped the surrounding country bare, not only of the remaining stores of grain, but also of the remnants of the Peruvian flocks and herds. Almagro’s men, too, were marching back from Chile, and reinforcements at length were pushing their way through the mountain defiles from the cities of the coast, and ship-load after ship-load of adventurers from Panama and Nicaragua were landing on the doomed shores of Peru. ”

“ Usually it stands out separate and independent, clinging by slight joints to the rocks, living chiefly on snow and thin air and maintaining sound health on this diet for 2000 years or more. Every feature or every gesture it makes expresses steadfast, dogged endurance. The bark is of a bright cinnamon color and is handsomely braided and reticulated on thrifty trees, flaking off in thin, shining ribbons that are sometimes used by the Indians for tent matting. ”

“ The Peruvian mules are fine, strong animals. The best are reared in Piura, and sent to Lima for sale. The amblers are selected for the saddle, the trotters for harness, and the rest are used as beasts of burthen. The price of a mule of middling quality is one hundred dollars; a better one double or treble that price; and the very best may even cost ten times as much. The endurance of these animals under fatigue and indifferent nurture is extraordinary, and without them the vast sand plains of Peru would present insuperable obstacles to intercourse between one place and another. ”

“ Yet Lima is essentially a Spanish-American city, for all that; where the pallid, waxy complexion of the gente decente is much in evidence. The women of this caste are often beautiful; so, for that matter, are the men. In a population that may almost be termed cosmopolitan, the Chinaman holds a considerable place. After the abolition of slavery in 1855, large numbers of coolies were imported for the plantations of the Peruvian coast, and Celestials of higher caste have since taken advantage of Peru’s open-door policy and the Japanese steamship lines. ”

“ Somewhat above the ancient town of Izcochaca, spilled up the hillside, rocks of a faint red or purple hue are dug out of the mountainside and tied in pairs on the backs of donkeys or llamas, scores of which we passed on their way to the great market of Huancayo. Even the inexperienced Andean traveler might easily have guessed what these stones were, from the habit of the donkeys of licking the burdens of their fellows at every halt. Salt is a government monopoly in Peru, and truly Peruvian in its condition. ”

“ After traversing the terrible desert, Almagro reached the ancient town of Arequipa, about sixty leagues from Cuzco. Here he learned with astonishment the insurrection of the Peruvians, and further, that the young Inca Manco still lay with a formidable force at no great distance from the capital. He had once been on friendly terms with the Peruvian prince, and he now resolved, before proceeding farther, to send an embassy to his camp, and arrange an interview with him in the neighborhood of Cuzco. ”

“ The Mission Fathers afterward came to appreciate its worth so highly that they bestowed upon it the name Cascara sagrada, or the "sacred bark." Since those early days the fame of it has spread the world around. No more valuable laxative is known to the medical world to-day, and every year great quantities of it are exported from our shores. Though the shrub is found as far south as San Diego, the bark is not gathered in any quantity south of Monterey, as it becomes too thin southward. ”

“ Even the broad level heights in which no trace of human habitations is discoverable, have been excavated by the mercenary Peruvian mestizos and creoles in search of hidden treasures. Their faith in the existence of concealed riches is founded on the following tradition. When the last reigning Inca, Atabiliba or Atahuallpa, was made prisoner by Don Francisco Pizarro, in Caxamarca, he proposed to ransom himself from the Spanish commander. ”

“ Nowhere in Peru have the cunning and artistic works of Chinese artificers been seen. The Chinese junks were too frail to withstand a storm that could drive them across the Pacific. And if the voyage were intentional they would have sought nearer land than the coasts of Mexico or Peru. The religion of the two countries differs materially; so does their writing. Manco Capac was a native Peruvian who ruled four hundred years before the coming of the Spaniards. ”