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So, having blocked up the road above by felling a large tree across it, they sit there among the flowers chewing coca, in default of food and drink, and meditating among themselves the cause of a mysterious roar, which has been heard nightly in their wake ever since they left the banks of the Meta. Jaguar it is not, nor monkey: it is unlike any sound they know; and why should it follow them?
Other means may be used; and as a matter of fact, the use of herbs and drugs, as methods of producing ecstatic states, have obtained in religious ceremonies from the most primitive times. As we shall see later, tobacco, hashish, coca, laurel water, and similar agents have been largely utilised for this purpose.
Some writers, objecting altogether to stimulating narcotics, assert that the use of coca produces all the evil results of opium; but this, from the evidence of many enlightened travellers, seems not to be the case. Taken immoderately, no doubt it is injurious, as is tea, coffee, tobacco, or wine; but used as it generally is by the natives, it is to them a great blessing.
All good things have to come to an end and after two weeks we caught the train back to Ahwaz and thence to Shaiba. For entertainment we had radio programs relayed from Britain but we also picked up programs emanating from Ahwaz which was under American control. Rum and Coca Cola sung by The Andrews Sisters was pounded out at least three times daily.
The two men closed their umbrellas, and each jumped respectively onto a large rock that nudged out of a turbid, fetid pool on a sunken area of sidewalk, and then made a second and broader leap to drier pavement. Straws in small bags of coca cola that each had in his right hand jiggled with phallic looseness as did their singular and murky reflections in passing over the inundated sidewalk.
A small fire had been burning on the ground. Near the embers were two old black ollas of Inca origin. In the little chacra, cassava, coca, and sweet potatoes were growing in haphazard fashion among charred and fallen tree trunks; a typical milpa farm. In the clearing were the ruins of eighteen or twenty circular houses arranged in an irregular group.
We saw at Popayan, and in several mountainous parts of Peru, lime reduced to a very fine powder, sold in the public markets to the natives among other articles of food. This powder, when eaten, is mingled with coca, that is, with the leaves of the Erythroxylon peruvianum.
When used to excess, the coca produces deleterious effects on the human system; but, if moderately taken, it is far more innocent in its results than either opium or tobacco. The coca-leaf is not eaten alone. A certain preparation is necessary, and another substance is mixed with it before it produces the proper effect.
They wore their long hair plaited and secured behind in the form of a queue. They came from the district of Yungas, and are called Yunguenos, or Cherrihuanos. Formerly they went on foot, but they now ride asses, on which they carry the herbs and nuts, reputed efficacious for the cure of sickness; as well as bundles of chinchona, coca leaf, incense, and other articles.
He took a rope, a can of beef, some crackers, and a small quantity of coca leaves. Then he went to the spring nearby and soothed his sore throat and mouth with water. He also filled a quart flask which he tied behind him. Returning to the caché, he covered it up again and, placing a roll of the coca leaves beneath his tongue, started on the ascent.
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