The Republican journal., 1897-04-08
never lost favor among modern medicines.

without room to spread out in the dense,
dark forest. 1t makes the most beautiful
cabinet wood imaginable, something like
mahogany, but redder and exquisitely
veined, taking on fine polish and re-
tanning its agreeable odor for long time;
but it can very rarely be obtained as the
trees are never felled until, either by age
or accidental decay, their precious sap be-
of extracting the viscid liquid. The first
consists in scraping the skin off the bark
with a sharp machete, much as a physi
elan would prepare an arm for vaccina-
ton, only on larger scale. The scrap
ings are perhaps an eighth of an inch
deep and Il inches square, and are made
the tree. Immediately after this opera
tlon, the scraped places are heated by APP
plying burning torches made out of the
dried branches of d tree called Chimalio-
ia, and afterwards raw cotton, or pieces
of old cloth, are spread on the half char
red places. By punching the cloth
against the tree with the edge of the
machete it is soon made to adhere,
and is left a day OF two. Then it is
gathered and put to boil in big iron pot.
While still hot from the boiling. it is taken
out and squeezed in a primitive machine
made of strong ropes of hide and wooden
levers, worked by hand. The lever is of
Indian make, but effective, the pressure
brought to bear being vely great. The
balsam oozes out and drops into a large
gourd, OF wooden bowl, placed to receive
it. When cooled, this is raw balsam.
1t is refined by a second boiling and drain
ing, after which it is wrapped in the
leaves of the tree and is ready for market.
The other process consists in entirely
barking the trunk and heavier branches
OF the tree, an operation which, as a rule,
kills it outright. or at best destroys its
usefulness for several years. The bark is
ground fine, boiled and submitted to
strong pressure, in order to extract every
particle of the oil. The result is much
inferior to balsam made in the other way.
Both methods are defective, and the last
named so runous that it has been forbid
den by law. When ready for shipment it
is thick, cleo resin, dark brown or black
The Indians of the Costa del Balsimo have
monopoly of the industry and have
grown rich upon it. They collect an
average of 20, 600 pounds of resin every
year, which readily sells to dealers in
Sonsonate and Acajutla for half dollar
the pound. These semi savages are the
nearest approach to the aboriginal tribes
to be found III Central America, and
among them the language of their an
cesters and many of the ancient usages
still prevail. Their territory is wilder
ness which borders on the bowling
a terra incognita to the paler race of the
same small country, traversed only by
narrow trails SO intricate that the strangers
who attempt 70 follow them would soon
be lost. 1t would be extremely hazardous
to make such an attempt, not only from
the natural dangers of the tropical forest,
but because the Indians, apparently
peaceful enough when they come out to
trade with the whites, resist to the death
any intrusion into their stronghold. They
live in communities, all their earn
ings being entrusted to the care of certain
old men, called ahuales, who exercise
both civil and religious authority, some
thing as did the patriarchs of Abraham
day. These ahuales keep the common
fund in a treasure box, to be distributed
among the families as their necessities re-,
qure. 1t is a sort of bank which never
breaks and from which no cashier ab-
seconds with the funds and although the
belief prevails in salvador that the tribe
has an enormous sum of money on hand,
their earnings having been so large since
time out of mind and their simple wants
so few and inexpensive, nobody is fool
hardy enough to attempt a robbery. 1t
10 odlo lHat AT tic cuu VI edCu ytdI. Inc
existing surplus is buried in sacred
spot known only to the ahuales, with re-
ligious ceremonies. The ''Balsimos.' as
these Indians are commonly called, are
much larger in stature and darker in color
than the other tribes and races of Central
America, probably because with less alien
blood in their veins. They are more
morose and taciturn, too, but temperate,
industrious and extremely religious, af-
ter a strange fashion of their own. They
profess the Roman Catholic faith, but
have no very clear idea of it's more exalted
tenets, and have interpolated many pecu-
liar aboriginal rites and superstitions,
some of their festivals being more like
bacchanalian riots than religious cere-
monies, accompanied by scenes of revolt
ing bestiality. When they come to town,
both men and women are dressed much
like the poems of the country; but in their
own territory they go unclothed from the
waist up, the women wearing only
short skirt of blue cotton cloth, woven by
themselves in handlooms, the men, white
cotton trousers; and it is said that when