NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 451 



T ^ inch in diameter, black, polished, nearly half-immersed in a 

 cupuliform white aril, with undulato-truncate mouth, which is 

 seated on an obconical torus. 



Humboldt's description of his Paullinia Cupana 

 (loc. cit,} tallies with the above as to number, form, 

 and cutting of leaflets, and the only difference is 

 that the fruits are called "ovate," having probably 

 been described from immature dried specimens, in 

 which the true form of the fruit is apt to be 

 disguised by the shrinking of the soft, half- formed 

 seed and of its enclosing pericarp. I have, besides, 

 seen with my own eyes that the Guarana of Brazil 

 and the Cupana of Venezuela are one and the same 

 plant, which is cultivated in villages and farms all 

 the way up the Rio Negro, and is known as 

 Guarana in the lower, but as Cupana in the 

 upper part of that river ; while about the line of 

 demarcation between Brazil and Venezuela it is 

 called indifferently by both names. The very same 

 plant is cultivated also at Javita, and in the villages 

 of the Atabapo and Orinoco, as far north as to the 

 cataracts of the latter. I have nowhere seen it wild. 



I gathered the following information about 

 Guarana at Santarem, on the Amazon, and at the 

 mouth of the river Uaupes. The fruit is gathered 

 when fully ripe, and the seeds are picked out of 

 the pericarp and aril, which dye the hands of the 

 operators a permanent yellow. The seeds are then 

 roasted, pounded, and made up into sticks, much 

 in the same way as chocolate, which they rather 

 resemble in colour. In 1850, a stick of guarana 

 used to weigh from one to two pounds, and was 

 sold at about 2s. 4cl. the pound at Santarem ; but 

 at Cuyaba, the centre of the gold and diamond 



