322 AMAZONIA AND LA PLATA. 



Thanks to the facilities of communication, the Argentine provinces naturally 

 supply the largest number of immigrants. But some Brazilians have also found 

 their way into the country, descending from the uplands by the Iguazu Valley. 

 Amono-st the strangers are a few repre;entatives of almost every country in the 

 New World and Europe, more especially Italians. It is noteworthy that, accord- 

 ino- to some partial returns, civil registrations, and baptismal entries, mere females 

 are born than males. This phenomenon, which his baen also observed in 

 Jaoan, is extremely rare in countries where accurate statistics are published. 

 Nevertheless, the fact had already been noted at the end of the eighteenth century 

 by Azara, who even determined the proportion of the sexes : fourteen females to 

 thirteen males. Most other travellers who have visited Paraguay have made 

 analogous observations, and De Bourgade, amongst others, refers to the biiptismal 

 registers of Asuncion for 1887 as showing that the percentage was 47-G for boys 

 and 02*4 for girls. " In the rural districts it appears that the disproportion is 

 laro-er, and that the entries for girls are 9-28 per cent above those for boys. 

 The disproportion is anomalous ; it stands out in contrast with the returns of the 

 Argentine Republic, which show the birth of more boys than girls." * 



Maté Culture. 



Industries of all kinds, including even agriculture, are still in a rudimentary 

 state, and at present the most profitable occupation is the collection of forest 

 products, such as lumber in Chaco, and yerba maté in the eastern wood- 

 lands. Paraguay is usually supposed to have a monopoly of maté {ilex paraguari- 

 ensis), although it also thrives in the Southern States of Brazil, where it even sup- 

 ports a considerable export trade. But that of Matto Grosso passes through 

 Paraguay, and is sold in the markets as Paraguayan in order to enhance its 

 value. 



It was in the territory of the missions that the Jesuits becume acquainted with 

 the use of this beverage, the taste for which, thanks to their reports, was intro- 

 duced into the southern part of the Continent. The eaa of the Guarani, that is, 

 the " plant " in a pre-eminent sense, has been translated by the Spanish yerba, 

 " herb," though it is not a herb, but a shrub, and even a tree, about the size of 

 the orange, but on the banks of the Ygatimi, a Parana affluent, growing to a height 

 of 25 or 26 feet with a girth of about 40 inches. Bonpland speaks of three varieties 

 in Paraguay, differing little from each other, and resembling the congoii/Mn of the 

 Brazilian plateaux. Its range comprises the whole space stretching from the 

 south of Minas Geraes to the frontiers of Ptio Grande do Sul, and from the Atlantic 

 to the Paraguay river. It is also said to have been met beyond Chaco in the 

 southern parts of Argentina, but the best quality is that of Paraguay, and especi- 

 ally that collected in the forests of the Rio Maracaju. Under the Jesuits each 

 mission had its cultivated yerbal yielding the caa mini, superior in flavour to the 



* Faraguayy p. 107. 



