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We accordingly descended, though it required great caution to avoid making a rapid descent into the deep ravine below us. For the greater part of the day we continued toiling on, supported by the coca with which we occasionally replenished our mouths. At length, towards evening, we made our way to a native hut, where we were received as usual.
Now, why have I so minutely described the coca-bush? Because, that, in the economy of the life of those Indians who inhabit the countries of the Andes mountains, this curious plant plays a most important part. Scarcely one of these people is to be met with who is not an eater of coca a "coquero." With them it is what the tea-tree is to the Chinese.
With juices from plants the yarn is colored and by means of a loom which any woman among them can make they weave this yarn into a kind of cloth. In Bolivian cities there are large markets to which these Indian women especially resort. On the ground are little piles of fruit, coca leaves and other products. They have no scales and sell by the pile.
The coca is a small tree or shrub about six feet in height, which grows in the warmer valleys among the Andes mountains. Its botanical name is Erythroxylon coca. Its leaves are small and of a bright green colour, and its blossoms white. Its fruits are very small scarlet berries.
The "coca," upon which Guapo made his supper, and which contented his stomach perfectly for the night, was an article very different from either the cacao which makes chocolate, or the nut of the cocoa-palm. You are now impatient to hear what sort of thing it was, and I shall tell you at once.
Within its trim beds are contained tea and coffee plants, sugar-canes, caoutchouc and gutta-percha trees, Erythroxylon coca for cocaine, and trees producing tannin and oils. Various medicinal plants are also to be found here, and such as afford useful nourishment for cattle. The necessary labour for this garden is supplied by a head-gardener and seventy natives.
Could Circumstance have ordered another dweller in that town to go to the Amazon and open up a world-trade in coca on a fifty-dollar basis and been obeyed? No, I was the only one. There were other fools there shoals and shoals of them but they were not of my kind. I was the only one of my kind. Circumstance is powerful, but it cannot work alone; it has to have a partner.
Extremely gratified with the result of our conferences in Santa Ana, yet reluctant to leave the delightful hospitality and charming conversation of our gracious host, we decided to go at once to Lucma, taking the road on the southwest side of the Urubamba and using the route followed by the pack animals which carry the precious cargoes of coca and aguardiente from Santa Ana to Ollantaytambo and Cuzco.
Thus mankind, civilized and barbarian, seek some stimulant other than natural food and drink. In Europe and America, where tobacco is easily obtained, it serves the purpose with the majority. In Peru, the Indians universally chew the leaves of the coca for the stimulating effect it produces.
It is wonderful how long these Indians will go without food by chewing coca leaf, which is far more sustaining and refreshing than tobacco. "Those men would make sturdy soldiers, and fight bravely," observed Uncle Richard, as we rode away. Our destination was a small valley, through which the Rio Vinaigre makes its way towards the Cauca.
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