The more northerly woods of Tucuman and Paraguay boast of innumerable
lofty cedars, which, having exceedingly tall, straight, and large
trunks, afford excellent materials for ships, and all sorts of building,
as they never feel decay, and last for ever, even under water. No tree
which Paraguay produces makes longer or wider beams, which, as they are
laboriously hewn, not by a water-machine, but by human hands with a saw,
and conveyed in waggons from Tucuman full three hundred leagues, sell
very high in the city of Buenos-Ayres, where no woods are to be seen,
and whither they are brought from the distant forests of Asumpcion,
after a two months' navigation on the river. In Tucuman, indeed, a
German lay-brother of our order constructed a machine, by which the saw
was moved to the cedars by water underneath the wheel, with a great
saving of time and labour; but it was soon after removed and destroyed
by the natives, who hate all innovation. Sometimes out of one cedar a
very large boat is made, to pull which thirty rowers are hardly
sufficient. I do not deny that the tree timboỹ is made into shorter and
slenderer planks and boats in Paraguay; but cedars hold the first place,
as they excel in the width, height, and straightness of their trunk, in
the docility of the materials, and their durability under water. There
are two kinds of cedars in Paraguay; the wood of the one is beautifully
red, that of the other rather palish; both, however, have a very sweet
smell, and in the heat of the sun shed great quantities of gum, which is
sometimes white, sometimes red, but always transparent. We used it in
the same manner as gum Arabic, to glue things together, and also for
polishing; might it not be fit for various medicinal purposes? Water
boiled with bits of cedar wood and drunk, is a remedy for extravasation
in those that have been bruised by a violent blow, by a sudden fall from
a horse or a tree; though in such cases, to accelerate the cure, an
infusion of quinoa, a kind of pulse with a very small grain, should also
be drunk. Others make plasters of the quinoa, after it has been pounded
in a mortar, and boiled in water, and when applied to the wounded or
bruised part, they dissipate noxious humours so soon as to exceed the
expectation both of the physician and the patient. This pulse is also a
very wholesome food.