nevertheless divided into four different classes. The nature of the soil, the humidity of the air, and the heat of the sun, have all a singular influence on the size of the pod, and the quantity of oily and aromatic parts contained in it. The four classes of vanilla are the following, beginning with those of a superior quality: baynilla fina, in which the grande fina and the chica fina or mancuerna are again distinguished; the zacate; the rezacate, and the basura. Each class is easily recognized in Spain from the manner in which the pacquets are made up. The grande fina is in general 22 centimetres in length*, and each mazo weighs, at Misantla, ten ounces and a half, and at Colipa, from nine to ten ounces. The chica fina is five centimetres shorter than the former, and is purchased one half cheaper. The zacate is a very long vanilla, extremely slender, and very acqueous. The basura, of which a pacquet contains a hundred pods, serves only to fill the bottom of the packages sent to Cadiz. The worst quality of the Misantla vanilla is called baynilla cimarona (wild) or baynilla palo; it is very slender and almost destitute of juice. A sixth variety, the baynilla pompong has a very large and beautiful fruit. It has been several times sent to Europe, and by means of the Genoese merchants into

stant bark

34

POLITICAL ESSAY ON THE

[BOOK IV.

the Levant; but as its odour is different from the vanilla called grande fina it has never hitherto had any sale.

We see from what has been stated respecting the vanilla, that it is with the goodness of this commodity as with that of the quinquina, which not only depends on the species of cinchona from which it proceeds, but also on the height of the country, the exposure of the tree, the period of the harvest, and the care employed in drying the bark. The commerce of both the vanilla and quinquina is in the hands of a few persons called habilitadores, because they advance money to the cosecheros, i. e. to the Indians employed in the harvest, who are in this way under the direction of undertakers. The latter draw almost the whole profit of this branch of Mexican industry. The competition among the purchasers, is so much less at Misantla and Colipa; as a long experience is necessary to guard against deception in the purchase of prepared vanilla. A single stained pod (manchada) may occasion the loss of a whole chest, in the passage from America to Europe. The blemishes which are thus discovered either in the pod or the stalk (garganta) are designated by particular names (mojo negro, mojo blanco, garro.) A prudent purchaser examines over and over the pacquets which he sends in the same chest.

The habilitadores have purchased, for the last twelve-years, the thousand of vanilla of the first class at an average price of 25 or 35 piastres; the thousand of zacate at ten, and of rezacate at four piastres. In 1803, the price of the grande fina was 50, and the zacate 15 piastres. The purchasers, far from paying the Indians in ready money, supply them in barter, and at a very high price, with brandy, cocoa, wine, and more especially with cotton cloth, manufactured at Puebla. In this barter consists part of the profits of these monopolists.

The district of Papantla, formerly an Alcaldia mayor, is situated 18 leagues to the north of Misantla; it produces very little vanilla, and that little is, besides, badly dried, though very aromatic. The Indians of Papantla, as well as those of Nautla, are accused of introducing themselves furtively into the forests of Quilate, for the sake of collecting the fruit of the epidendrum, planted by the natives of Misantla. In the intendancy of Oaxaca, the village of Teutila is celebrated for the superior quality of the vanilla produced in the neighbouring forests. It appears, that this variety was the first which was introduced into Spain in the sixteenth century; for even at this day, the baynilla de Teutila is considered at Cadiz as preferable to every other. It is indeed dried with much care, being pricked with pins, and suspended by

threads of the Pite; but it weighs less by nearly a ninth than that of Misantla. I know not the quantity of vanilla produced in the province of Honduras, and annually exported from the small port of Truxillo; but it appears to be very

inconsiderable.

The forests of Quilate yield, in very abundant years, 800 millares of vanilla; a bad harvest in very rainy years amounts only to 200. The mean produce is estimated thus

Misantla and Colipa

Papantla

Teutila

Millares.

700

100

110

The value of these 910 millares is, at Vera Cruz, from 30 to 40,000 piastres. We must add the produce of the harvests of Santiago and San Andres Tuxtla, for which I am in want of sufficiently accurate data. It frequently happens that the harvest of one year does not pass all at once into Europe, but that a part of it is reserved to be added to that of the following year. In 1802, 1793 millares of vanilla left the port of Vera Cruz. It is astonishing, that the total consumption of Europe is not greater.

The same eastern slope of the Cordillera, on which the vanilla is produced, produces also the sarsaparilla (zarza) of which there was exported

from Vera Cruz, in 1803, nearly 250,000 * kilogrammes †, and the Jalap (Purga de Xalapa) which is the root, not of the mirabilis jalapa, of the M. longiflora, or of the M. dichotoma, but of the convolvolus jalapa. This convolvolus vegetates at an absolute height of from 13 to 14 hundred metres ‡ on the whole chain of mountains extending from the Volcan d'Orizaba, to the Cofre de Perote. We did not meet with it in our herborizations around the town of Xalapa itself; bnt the Indians who inhabit the neighbouring villages brought us some excellent roots of it collected near Banderilla, to the east of San Miguel el Soldado, This valuable remedy is procured in the Subdelegacion de Xalapa, around the villages of Santiago, Tlachi, Tihuacan de los Reyes, Tlacolula, Xicochimalco, Tatatila, Yxhuacan, and Ayahualulco; in the jurisdiccion de San Juan de los Llanos, near San Pedro Chilchotla and Quimixtlan; in the partidos of the towns of Cordoba, Orizaba, and San Andres Turtla. The true, Purga de Xalapa delights only in a temperate climate, or rather an almost

* 551,750 lb. avoird. Trans.

†The sarsaparilla employed in commerce proceeds from several species of smilax, very different from the S, Sarsaparilla. See the description of the ten new species, brought by us in the species of M. Willdenow. T. iv. p. i. p. 773.

From 4264 to 4592 feet. Trans.