Chap. III. YPADtJ. 211 



holds with their groups of Indian servant girls. The 

 term agriculture cannot be applied to this business ; 

 in this primitive country plough, spade, and hoe 

 are unknown even by name. The people idle away 

 most part of the time at their rogas, and have no 

 system when they do work, so that a family rarely 

 produces more than is required for its own con- 

 sumption. 



The half-caste and Indian women, after middle age, 

 are nearly all addicted to the use of Ypadu, the powdered 

 leaves of a plant (Erythroxylon coca) which is well known 

 as a product of the eastern parts of Peru, and is to the 

 natives of these regions what opium is to the Turks and 

 betel to the Malays. Persons who indulge in Ypadti at 

 Ega are held in such abhorrence, that they keep the 

 matter as secret as possible ; so it is said, and no doubt 

 with truth, that the slender result of the women's daily 

 visits to their rogas, is owing to their excessive use of 

 this drug. They plant their little plots of the tree in 

 retired nooks in the forest, and keep their stores of the 

 powder in hiding-places near the huts which are built 

 on each plantation. Taken in moderation, Ypadu has 

 a stimulating and not injurious effect, but in excess it 

 is very weakening, destroying the appetite, and pro- 

 ducing in time great nervous exhaustion. I once had 

 an opportunity of seeing it made at the house of a 

 Maraud Indian on the banks of the Jutahi. The 

 leaves were dried on a mandioca oven, and afterwards 

 pounded in a very long and narrow wooden mortar. 

 When about half pulverised, a number of the large 

 leaves of the Cecropia palmata (candelabrum tree) were 



p2 



