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CHAPTEE XVII. 



COCA. 



Its immense Consumption in Peru and Bolivia — Mode of chewing the leaves - 

 Its wonderfully strengthening eflfects — Fatal consequences of its abuse - 

 Reasons which prompted the Spaniards to interdict its use, and finally to allow 

 and encourage it — Its chemical analysis by Professor Wohler of Gottingen. 



ALTHOUGrH but little known beyond the confines of its 

 native country, Coca is beyond all doubt one of the most 

 remarkable productions of the tropical zone, and deserves the 

 more to be noticed as the time is, perhaps, not far distant, when 

 it will assume a conspicuous rank in the markets of the world. 



The sultry valleys on the eastern slopes of the Peruvian and 

 Bolivian Andes are the seat of the Erythroxylon Coca, which 

 like the coffee-tree bears a lustrous green foliage, and white 

 blossoms ripening into small scarlet berries. These, however, 

 are not used, but the leaves, which when brittle enough to 

 break on being bent, are stripped from the plant, dried in 

 the sun, and closely packed in sacks. The naked shrub soon 

 gets covered with new foliage, and after three or four months 

 its leaves are ready for a second plucking, though in some 

 of the higher mountain-valleys it can only be stripped once 

 a year. Every eight or ten years the plantations require to 

 be renewed, as the leaves of the old shrubs are less juicy, and 

 consequently of inferior quality. Like the coffee-tree, the 

 coca-shrub thrives only in a damp situation, under shelter from 

 the sun ; and for this reason maize, which rapidly shoots up, is 

 generally sown between the rows of the young plants. At a 

 later period, when they no longer need this protection, care 

 must be taken to weed the plantation, and to loosen the soil 

 every two or three months. 



Tlie local consumption of coca is immense, as the Peruvian 



