TKADE  IN  CINCHONA  BARK  IN  BOLIVIA, 
548 
as  the  Aramayo  Company,  all  the  Calisaya  barks  then  on  sa!e5 
whether  at  La  Paz  or  at  Cochabamba,  as  well  as  those  which 
might  be  collected  in  the  forests  before  the  termination  of  the  year 
1851,  it  was  feared  that  the  markets  might  become  overstocked, 
and  that  the  price  of  the  precious  drug  might  fall  to  such  an  extent 
that  neither  one  nor  other  of  the  bancos  would  come  out  of  the 
affair  with  profit.* 
In  the  two  years  which  had  then  expired,  the  forests  alone  of 
Bolivia  produced  more  than  three  millions  of  pounds  of  Cinchona 
bark  !  Such  was  the  result  of  the  sudden  rise  which  took  place  in 
the  price  of  barks,  in  consequence  of  the  fall  of  the  Pinto  monopoly. 
It  was  not,  however,  the  poor  cascarilleros,  miserable  laborers 
who,  at  the  expense  of  vast  toil,  had  dragged  from  the  midst  of 
the  forests  the  much  sought-for  bark  ;  it  was  not  they,  1  say,  who 
generally  profited  by  the  change,  but  far  rather  was  it  their  wealthy 
employers.  It  is  this  that  makes  one  the  more  regret  the  ravages 
committed  in  the  forests  of  this  region,  and  of  which  I  will  mention 
one  instance. 
I  have  said  that  the  bark  called  Quinquina  tabla,  that  is  the 
larger  bark  of  the  trunk  of  the  tree,  was  paid  for  at  the  rate  of 
sixty  piastres,  and  that  the  Charque  or  Charquesillo,-f  and  the 
canuto  or  thinner  barks  obtained  from  the  lower  parts  of  the  tree, 
realized  scarcely  the  half  of  this  sum.  What  was  the  result  of  this 
difference  in  price  ?  It  was,  that  in  many  places  all  the  smaller 
bark,  which  was  difficult  to  peel,  had  been  abandoned,  and  nothing 
taken  from  the  felled  tree  but  the  large  bark.  In  the  newly  dis- 
covered Cinchona  forests  of  Cochabamba  I  have  been  assured  that 
in  order  not  to  have  the  trouble  of  felling  a  tree,  they  frequently 
wTere  content  to  strip  off  the  bark  merely  to  the  height  that  the 
hand  could  easily  reach  ;  and  that  if  a  tree  was  cut  down,  the  cas- 
*The  firm  of  Blaye  and  Co.  has  fallen  in  its  turn,  and  I  have  learnt  that 
the  government  has  decided  to  conduct  itself  the  export  of  the  barks  which 
remained  in  the  warehouses,  paying  for  them  at  the  same  rates  that  would 
have  been  given  by  the  companies. 
t  Charque  is  the  name  applied  in  Spanish  America  to  dried  meat,  which 
has  generally  the  form  of  thin  slices.  It  is  to  this  that  they  compare  the 
thin  Cinchona  barks  which  have  dried  without  rolling  up.  The  word  char- 
quesillo  is  a  diminutive  of  charque. 
