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." iyPersonal 
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 
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 — ^ had been familiar with 
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