CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOTANY. 
97 
implicitly carried into effect, and Bonpland was conveyed a pri- 
soner to Assuncion. The Dictator received him with every 
demonstration of respect and kindness, explaining the motives 
which justified him in the course he had taken, and offered him 
any place he might select in the interior, as he had previously 
done to Artigas. Bonpland chose to fix himself at Santa Maria, 
to the S.E. of Assuncion, where he enjoyed full liberty, and was 
subject to no other restraint than the obligation of remaining 
peaceably in its neighbourhood. Here he settled upon the farm 
assigned to him, and practised also as a physician. He appears 
to have lived there in great contentment for ten years, at the 
end of which time he received from Francia full liberty to de- 
part whenever he pleased. The best proof that Bonpland was 
satisfied with the treatment he received, is that he never protested 
against his captivity, and that he refused (I believe, for a period 
of two years) to avail himself of the liberty given to him ; and 
it is certain that he then declined the many pressing invitations 
from Buenos Ayres, sent to him by the foreign ambassadors and 
other distinguished persons, who had greatly interested them- 
selves in his welfare. At length he made a visit to the River 
Plate, but remained there only a very short time, for he soon 
returned to the Missions, and finally established himself on his 
former estate of S. Anna de la Restauracion, not far from 
Candelaria in Corrientes, bordering upon Paraguay, where he 
lived, much respected by all, till his death in 1858. 
From his long residence in the country, and his great expe- 
rience in all that relates to the preparation of Yerba, no one had 
better opportunities than Bonpland to identify the real species 
from which that ai’ticle of consumption is manufactured. 
The system of the merchants in their agreement vrith the 
^ habilitadores ’ who undertake the quest of Yerba in the distant 
forests of Paraguay, the manner of hiring the Indian labourers 
for this work, the preparations for feeding them during their 
long bivouac, the mode of collecting and drying the branches, 
roasting and separating the leaves, pounding them, and packing 
the Yerba, thus prepared, in hide bags, are well described in ]\Ir. 
Lambert’s memoir on Ilex Paraguayensis, and in Mr. Robert- 
son’s ‘ Letters from Paraguay, and Francia’s Reign of Terror.’ 
The same rude methods were employed in all the Spanish Mis- 
sions, and also in the Brazilian settlements, up to a very recent 
period ; but of late years more improved processes, upon a much 
larger scale, have been brought into use about Curitiba; but in 
the province of Rio Grande the old system is still continued. At 
Curitiba, I am told, the leaves are now roasted more equally, in 
cast-iron pans set in brickwork, much after the manner in which 
tea is prepared in China, except that the pans are much larger. 
When the leaves are sufficiently dried, they are pounded in 
VOL. II. o 
