Note 15 — PART the FIRST.

Maté, or Paraguay-tea, or South-sea-tea, are pounded dry leaves of a plant growing in South America, and chiefly in Paraguay. The Jesuits, when in possession of the interior parts of the provinces of Paraguay, got by a manœuvre similar to that of the Dutch, in regard to the spice-trade, the exclusive commerce of this commodity. They cultivated this plant in enclosures, upon the rivers Uraguai and Parana, and wherever it grew wild, it was destroyed; and after the space of nineteen years they became the sole masters of this trade, which was very lucrative; for as this plant is thought to be an excellent restorative, and a good paregoric, and therefore of indispensible necessity to the workmen in the famous Peruvian mines, it is carried constantly to Peru and Chili; the whole consumption of it being yearly upon an average of 160,000 arrobas, of 25 pounds Spanish weight each; and the price is, at a medium, thirty-six piasters per arroba, so that this plant was worth to the Jesuits 5,760,300 piastres per ann. the tenth part of which sum must be deducted out of the whole, for instruments of agriculture, the erection and repairing of buildings necessary for manufacturing this plant, feeding and cloathing of about 300,000 Indians and Negroes: so that still above five millions of piastres were the clear yearly profit of the pious fathers. These cunning men sold these leaves in powder on purpose that no botanist might get a sight of them, and thus be enabled to find out the plant to which the leaves belong, in case some plants should have escaped their selfish destruction of them. Some writers call this plant Maté, which is, I believe, the name of the vessel it is drank out of. Others call it Caa, and make this the generic name of it, and its species are Caa-cuys, Caa-mini, and Caa-guaz, the last of which is the coarsest sort prepared, with the stalks left to it, for which reason it is likewise called Yerva de Palos; but the Caa-mini or Yerva de Caamini is the best sort and sold dearer; the Caa-cuys will not keep so long as the other two sorts. This plant is thought to be the Ilex Cassine, Linn. Sp. pl. p. 181. or the Dahoon-holly. Forster’s Flora Americ. Septentr. p. 7. and Catesby car. i. t. 31. F.