settlement of the Portuguese.

Hides, goat skins, and salt, are exported from these islands, but the
chief and most valuable produce is the orchilla weed. It is a
government monopoly, and is at present farmed out to a man named
Martiney.

As the orchilla weed is a production, the practical application of
which in various ways is diffused over a large surface of utility, and
as its peculiar properties are not very generally known, a minute
description of its nature and uses, which I have procured at some cost
of time and research, may not prove uninteresting.

The orchilla is a delicate fibrous plant, springing up in situations
that are apparently the most unfavourable to the sustenance of
vegetable life. When gathered it has a soft delicious odour, which it
retains for a great length of time. Mr. Glas, in his history of the
Canary Islands, gives so clear and accurate an account of its growth,
that I will avail myself of his description, as being not only the best
I have met with, but as containing all the necessary particulars. "The
orchilla weed," he observes, "grows out of the pores of the stones or
rocks, to about the length of three inches: I have seen some eight or
ten inches, but that is not common. It is of a round form and of the
thickness of common sewing twine. Its colour is grey, inclining to
white: here and there on the stalk we find white spots or scabs. Many
stalks proceed from one root, at some distance from which they divide
into branches. There is no earth or mould to be perceived on the rock
or stone where it grows. Those who do not know this weed, or are not
accustomed to gather it, would hardly be able to find it, for it is of
such a colour, and grows in such a direction, that it appears at first