ON THE PARAGUAY TEA. 39 
infuse and imbibe before each meal, and sometimes much 
oftener, never tasting food unless they have first drunk their 
maté. 
From the recent work of Mr. Robertson, called “ Francia's 
Reign of Terror, or Paraguay as it is," we extract the latest 
account of the mode of collecting the Yerba de Paraguay. 
“ Near a small miserable town, bearing the imposing name 
of Villa Real, are situated the principal yerbals, or woods of 
the Yerba Tree, about a hundred and fifty miles higher up 
the Paraguay river than Assumption. So impenetrable and 
in many parts overrun with brushwood, are these forests, and 
everywhere so tenanted with reptiles and insects of a venom- 
ous description, that the only animals capable of being driven 
through them, are oxen and mules; the former, necessary 
for the food of the colony of yerba makers, and the latter 
indispensible to the conveyance out of the woods of the tea, 
after it has been manufactured and packed. These poor 
beasts are so tortured with the bites of mosquitos, as to yell 
dreadfully when driven along, and the Peons, or slaves who 
ride the mules, have their legs cased in raw hides, faces 
vizored in tanned sheepskin, and hands protected by gloves 
of the same material The party generally consists of from 
twenty to fifty souls, and is collected together by the mer- 
chant, who has obtained permission from the Governor to cut 
the leaves, and who immediately notifies in public his inten- 
tion in those districts where the natives reside who best 
understand the business. The merchant comes, provided 
with goods, mules, hides, matchetes (or hatchets), and a few 
axes, and he gives the persons whom he engages a certain 
quantity of articles in advance, on credit. "Thus equipped, 
they set off in the direction of the Forests of Yerba. When 
bivouacking at night, a high stage is erected, fifteen feet from 
the ground, whereon a roof is laid, and where the whole 
colony sleep, “para evitar los mosquitos," which never rise 
so high in the air, and also to be safe from the yaguars and 
Noxious reptiles which swarm in the forests. When the 
come to a yerbal, or forest of maté trees, sufficiently large 
