542 
TRADE  IN  CINCHONA  BARK  IN  BOLIVIA. 
in  collecting  the  bark,  that  before  the  termination  of  the  first  year 
there  had  arrived  at  La  Paz  more  than  20,000  qnintals  ;  that  is_, 
twice  as  much  as  the  Company  had  engaged  and  was  prepared  to 
purchase  in  the  period,  and  as  much  as  the  Pinto  Company  would 
have  exported  in  five  years.  Affairs  then  took  another  aspect. 
Upon  the  occurrence  of  this  fresh  crisis,  which  ought  long  pre- 
viously to  have  been  foreseen,  the  government  at  once  concluded 
that  it  was  its  duty  to  sustain  the  monopoly,  and  consequently  lent 
its  support  to  the  various  measures  suggested  to  it  for  this  end.  It 
enacted,  in  particular,  that  all  barks  obtained  from  the  forests  should 
be  immediately  deposited  in  the  Company's  warehouses,  under 
guarantee  of  being  purchased  by  it  as  soon  as  it  required  them.  It 
then  prohibited  bark-cutting  in  all  forests  of  the  republic  for  four 
years. 
The  first  of  these  decrees  was  intended  to  put  a  stop  to  contra- 
band trade,  which,  though  far  less  easy  than  one  might  have  sup- 
posed, was,  nevertheless,  practicable.  It  exasperated  particularly 
the  inhabitants  of  La  Paz. 
The  second  decree,  which  attacked  more  especially  the  interests 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  towns  of  the  interior,  who  still  had  a  con- 
siderable number  of  workmen  in  the  forests,  was  received  by  them 
with  the  same  disfavor  ;  and  the  complaints  becoming  general,  the 
feeble  President  was  driven  to  make,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  mo- 
nopoly, several  concessions  which  preluded  its  fall.  In  fact,  the 
extraordinary  congress,  which  assembled  at  La  Paz  during  our 
abode  there,  having  decided  that  the  executive  power  had  exceeded 
its  functions  in  making  with  the  firm  of  Aramayo  the  agreement 
in  question,  annulled  the  contract. 
At  this  period  the  Banco  Aramayo  had  purchased  14,000  quin- 
tals of  barks,  and  had  proposed  to  take  14,000  quintals  in  addition 
(making  the  lots  of  the  two  following  years),  one-third  of  the 
amount  of  which  was  to  be  paid  in  ready  money,  and  the  remainder 
by  bills  ;  but  all  the  merchants  were  not  willing  to  agree  to  this 
arrangement,  and  a  new  company,  which  offered  to  pay  for  the 
goods  with  ready  money,  having  offered  itself  and  having  been  ac- 
cepted, the  sales  effected  on  credit  by  the  old  firm  were  immedi- 
ately annulled.  On  my  departure  from  La  Paz  the  new  Company 
had  just  been  constituted  under  the  title  of  Pedro  Blaye  and  Co., 
and  as  it  had  engaged  to  purchase,  on  almost  the  same  conditions 
