COLLECTION OF THE BARKS. 31 
forest district which is thereby allotted to him, for whatever of 
profit it may yield, he names after some holy person—for example, 
Bosque (forest) of San Miguel. In consideration of titles of this 
kind for several such Bosques the master Cascarillero may receive 
from acommercial house advancements of money, in order to en- 
gage the services of occasionally from 300 to 400 laborers, Peons, 
which, in October or November, he guides into the forest. The 
men begin their activities by the erection of bamboo huts, and are 
then divided into sections, at the head of whicha Fefe, Captain, is 
usually placed. For the search of the trees, felling them, cleaning 
and peeling the trunks, digging up the roots, and drying the bark, 
a proper division of work is assigned to the several sections. The 
peons transport the bundles of bark, weighing about 150 pounds, 
to large depositories, whereby many succumb to their immoderate 
exertions and often insufficient nourishment; others are carried 
away by malarial fever, so that not unfrequently one-fourth 
of the men suffer destruction. The final sorting and_pack- 
ing in serons' (heavy sacking is at the present time meet- 
ing with increased use), as also the admixture of inferior barks, 
takes place mostly in the magazines, “ bodegas,” of the seaports. 
It is said that only a few bark dealers are ultimately successful in 
accumulating wealth. 
The thinner bark of the less developed portions of the stem 
rolls up, upon drying, into quills (caxutos, canutillos), while the 
pieces stripped from the stronger stems are very often made to 
receive their flat form ( plancha, tabla) by placing them for a short 
time one upon another and loading with weights,’ then exposing to 
the sun, and repeating this treatment several times. 
After drying, the barks are either sorted, chiefly according to 
their size, or all are packed together, without distinction, in sacks 
of manilla-hemp (the bast of the agave-like Fourcroya), or in linen 
or cotton material, in the form of bales, containing about 100 
pounds. In some places, as at Popayan, the bark is even stamped, 
in order to reduce it to the smallest possible bulk. The large 
dealers of the seaport towns then enclose the bark in raw bul- 
lock hide (zurron), which, having been previously moistened, com- 
presses the contents most firmly upon drying. In many places, 
particularly in the neighborhood of Loxa, wooden chests are also 
employed for the transportation of the bark. 
In the domain of the Cordilleras the transportation of the barks 
1 Zurron signifies in Spanish a pouch or bag made from cowhide, or also the hide itself. 
2 The handsome frontispiece in Weddell’s Yist. nat. des Quinguinas represents this 
occupation in the forest of San Juan del Ora, province of Carabaya, _ 
