98 



cloth dyed in that country, which in thirty years* 

 use has lost nothing of the original lustre of its 

 colours, which are blue, yellow, red and green, nei- 

 ther from exposure to the air or the use of soap. 

 The natives of the southern provinces obtain a blue 

 from a plant with which I am unacquainted ; but in 

 the Aran canian and the Spanish possessions they 

 make use of indigo diluted with fermented urine, 

 which gives to the substance dyed a beautiful and 

 durable colour. 



Red is obtained from a species of madder called 

 relbun (rubia Cliilensis). It usually grows under 

 shrubs in sandy places ; its stalk is nearly round, the 

 leaves oval, pointed and whitish, and placed by fours 

 as in the filbert ; its flowers are monopetalous, and 

 divided into four parts ; the seed is contained in two 

 little red berries, which a.re united like those of the 

 European madder; the root is red, runs deep into 

 the earth, and its lateral fibres frequently occupy a 

 space of many feet in circumference. 



A species of agrimony (eupatorium Chilense) 

 known in the country by the name of contra yerba, 

 furnishes the yellow. This plant has a violet stalk 

 of about two feet in height, divided by small knots, 

 from whence issue the leaves in pairs opposite to 

 each other; they are of a bright green, three or four 

 inches in length, narrow and indented ; the branches 

 are axillary, and produce some fiosculous flow- 

 ers of a yellow colour, resembling those of the agri- 



•wliat less than the European, the root of which is boiled in watev 

 in the same manner to extract the dye. The poquell is a species 

 of southern wood; of a golden colour. — Frazievy vol. L 



