NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 423 



of the boxes quite ruined. The bundle of Caapi would 

 presumably have quite lost its virtue from the same 

 cause, and I clo not know that it was ever analysed 

 chemically ; but some portion of it should be in the 

 Kew Museum at this day. 



Caapi is used by all the nations on the river 

 Uaupes, some of whom speak languages differing 

 in toto from each other, and have besides (in other 

 respects) widely different customs. But on the Rio 

 Negro, if it has ever been used, it has fallen into 

 disuse ; nor did I find it anywhere among nations 

 of the true Carib stock, such as the Barres, Bani- 

 huas, Mandauacas, etc., with the solitary exception 

 of the Tarianas, who have intruded a little way 

 within the river Uaupes, and have probably learnt 

 to use caapi from their Tucano neighbours. 



When I was at the cataracts of the Orinoco, in 

 June 1854, I again came upon caapi, under the 

 same name, at an encampment of the wild Guahibos, 

 on the savannas of Maypures. These Indians not 

 only drink the infusion, like those of the Uaupes, 

 but also chew the dried stem, as some people do 

 tobacco. From them I learnt that all the native 

 dwellers on the rivers Meta, Vichada, Guaviare, 

 Sipapo, and the intervening smaller rivers, possess 

 caapi, and use it in precisely the same way. 



In May i<S5/, after a sojourn of two years in the 

 North-Eastern Peruvian Andes, I reached, by way 

 of the river Pastasa, the great forest of Canelos, at 

 the foot of the volcanoes Cotopaxi, Llanganati, and 

 Tunguragua ; and in the villages of Canelos and 

 Puca-yacu inhabited chiefly by tribes of Zaparos- 

 I again saw Caapi planted. It was the identical 

 species of the Uaupes, but under a different name, 



