292 The Andes ajstd the Amazon. 



signs of intemperance are an uncertain step, sallow com- 

 plexion, black-rimmed, deeply-sunken eyes, trembling lips, 

 incoherent speech, and stolid apathy. Coca played an im- 

 portant part in the religious rights of the Incas, and divine 

 honors were paid to it. Even to-day the miners of Peru 

 throw a quid of coca against the hard veins of ore, affirm- 

 ing that it renders them more easily worked ; and the In- 

 dians sometimes put coca in the mouth of the dead to insure 

 them a welcome in the other world. The alkaloid cocaine 

 was discovered by Wohler. 



Flowers are nearly confined to the edges of the dense 

 forest, the banks of the rivers and lagunes. There are a 

 greater number of species under the equator, but we have 

 brighter colors in the temperate zone. " There is grand- 

 eur and sublimity in the tropical forest (wrote Wallace, aft- 

 er four years of observation), but little of beauty or bril- 

 liancy of color." Perhaps the finest example of inflorescence 

 in the world is seen in the Victoria Regia, the magnifi- 

 cent water-lily discovered by Schomberg in 1837. It 

 inhabits the tranquil waters of the shallow lakes which 

 border the Amazon. The leaves are from fifteen to eight- 

 een feet in circumference, and will bear up a child twelve 

 years old ; the upper part is dark, glossy green, the under 

 side violet or crimson. The flowers are a foot in diameter, 

 at first pure white, passing, in twenty-four hours, through 

 successive hues from rose to bright red. This queen of 

 water-plants was dedicated to the Queen whose empire is 

 never at once shrouded in night. 



