The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-04-03

ished and backward country in all South America could long continue to purchase twice as much per annum as she sells. Most of the imports come from England; some from China and less from Germany. The United States furnishes little but lard. All the flour comes from Chilli.
 Ecuodor is famous for only two things-for making the best straw hats and raising the finest pineapples in the world; credit for the latter being en- tirely due to Dame Nature, and for the former to the native women who weave them. The so-called Panama hats are mostly made in Guayaquil and the In- dian villages along the coast, but few outside of Ecuador and none at all ill Panama. The misleading name was given to them long ago, when Panama merchants controlled the trade. The best hats are made of Toquilla fibre, (carludovica palmetto, ,--an aborescent plant, which grows about five feet high and resembles the palm. Its yard long leaf is plaited like fan and the stalk is three-cornered. The leaf is cut while young, the stiff parallel veins re- moved, and then it is whipped into shreds and immersed in boiling water. Afterwards it is bleached in the sun. Mocora fibre is also used, from tree that grows like a cocoanut; but more rarely, because it is difficult to work, it's bark being extremely hard and horny. Its leaves are so long that one straw will finish a hat without splicing. Pita fibre-a species of cacti-is also much used. It is not so much matter what fibre is employed as how it is manipulated. The best hats are woven under water, by women who kneel be- side the stream and keep the straw constantly submerged. It requires three or four months to make good hat; and when finished it will bring all the way from fifteen to one hundred and fifty dollars. But it will last a lifetime. and can be rolled up and chucked into a vest pocket. cleaned as often as required and worn either side out, as the inner surface is as smooth and we'll finished as the outer.
 A great many hamn1ocks are also made in Ecuador, from pita fibre and dried grass; and they find a ready market abroad. The coffee of Ecuador is fairly good, but very little is export ed. It grows on a tree about eight feet high, with glossy, dark-green leaves, flowers resembling orange blossoms, and yellow, green and purple berries, ail at the same time. It is said that each tree yields an average of ten pounds of coffee year. Another sta pie of Ecuador which ought to be made much more of is chincona, or Pe- ruvian bark. As everybody knows, it's name was bestowed in honor of the Countess of Chincon, who was cured by it's use of intermittent fever in Lima, Peru, about the middle of the seven teenth century The medicine which saved the countess life was prescribed by an Indian, who said it had been used for centuries by the Incas and
 their descendants. It worked so well in this famous case that it was then
 introduced into Europe and the knowl- edge of it's curative powers soon spread
 throughout the earth. Comparatively
 little of it grows in Peru, except on it's
 northern border; but Ecuador has
 enough to supply the world for all time
 to come. That familiar medicine, qui-
 nne-an alkaloid made from Peruvion
 bark--was discovered in 1920. The
 same bark cantains several other all
 kaloids, but none so important as qui-
 nine. In many parts of South America
 it is as necessary provision as food,
 and no traveller will venture into a ma
 larious region without it. There are
 twenty-two distinct varieties of trees in
 Ecuador from whose bark qunine is
 made The bark is mostly sent to Ger many and comes back in the form of
 the bitter medicine, retailing for nearly double the price here, where it grows, , than in the United States and Europe. By-the-by, it is asserted that the chin- coma tree f1ourishes not only on the , lower slopes of the Andes, but equally well wherever transplanted-in India } Java, Algiers, Mexico and the United States. Among all the new industries that are continually winning fortunes
 why does not some enterprising Yankee start quinine plantation in one of the more elevated parts of California or the
 southern states?
 The product par excellence, of Ecua-
 dor at present is chocolate and cocoa especially the last named, which is sec. ond in quality only to that of Venezue- la. Three or four kinds of cocoa are indigenous to this coast though only a fraction of it is gathered, owing tc
 the scarcity of laborers. One of these |, varieties is erythorrylon cocoa, from which cocaine is made. Formerly Ec- , uador and Bolivia supplied the world
 with all 1t had of these strange leaves which to the native Indians are more
 of a food than a medicine and consd- cred absolutely indispensable as we consider salt. But after Dr. Roller, ot
 Vienna, discovered the akaloid CO.,
 caine, the English government at once dispatched a commission to transplant
 the tree in it's Indian colonies; and now India furnishes the murderous drug tt , most of the world. Strange to say , chocolate costs more here, by half thar , at retail in the United States. where il . does not grow. Probably this is partly
 owing to the fact that pipe-clay is harmless as a beverage and greatly in- creases the weight of their chocolate :. The Mexican word, chocolat, is the ori- gin of our name as beverage, here pronounced as if spelled chalk-o-lat-ah The best chocolate is prepared by first