XXV NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 451 
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. 4d. the pound at Santarem ; but 
at Cuyaba, the centre of the gold and diamond 
