NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 449 



Venezuela. Humboldt says: "A missionary seldom 

 travels without being provided with some prepared 

 seeds of the Cupana. The Indians scrape the 

 seeds, mix them with flour of cassava, envelop the 

 mass in plantain-leaves, and set it to ferment in 

 water, till it acquires a saffron-yellow colour. This 

 yellow paste, dried in the sun and diluted in water, 

 is taken in the morning as a kind of tea. This 

 beverage is bitter and stomachic, but appeared to 

 me to have a very disagreeable taste." (Personal 

 Narrative, v. 278, Miss Williams's translation.) 



It was at Javita, near the head of the Atabapo, 

 that Humboldt made trial of cupana. I first tasted 

 the cold infusion, prepared nearly in the same way, 

 except that no cassava had been added to the grated 

 seeds, I think at Tomo, on the Guainia, only two 

 days' journey from Javita, in 1853 ; and I after- 

 wards drank it frequently on the Atabapo and 

 Orinoco, where the inhabitants still take it com- 

 monly the first thing in a morning, on quitting their 

 hammocks, and consider it a preservative against 

 the malignant bilious fevers which are the scourge 



o o 



of that region. It is as bitter as rhubarb, and is 

 always drunk unsweetened, so that at first one finds 

 it absolutely repulsive ; but it soon ceases to be so, 

 and those who use it habitually get to like it much, 

 and to find it almost a necessary of life. When 

 the bowels are relaxed and coffee taken in the 

 morning, fasting excites too much peristaltic action, 

 then cupana is decidedly preferable, for it is less 

 irritating than coffee and has quite the same 

 stimulating effect on the nervous system. 



Long before I saw cupana in Venezuela indeed, 

 ever since the end of 1849 I had been familiar with 



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