Note 155 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
It was from those mountains that the Jesuits procured the seed of the Ilex Paraguayensis to plant in their reductions. The leaves beaten into a finish powder furnished the ‘Paraguayan tea’, called yerba-maté by the Spaniards and caa by the Indians, from which the Jesuits derived a handsome revenue. After the expulsion of the Order all the yerba in Paraguay was procured, till a few years ago, from forests in the north of Paraguay, in which the tree grew wild.