"'Unhappily there are,' was the reply, 'but they are usually less serious than in the case of opium. Sometimes the habit increases to such a degree that the stomach cannot retain other food, and there is a constant craving for coca. The system cannot be sustained by this stimulant alone; the victim is reduced to a skeleton, becomes feverish and restless, and ultimately dies in consequence of his passion. But, as far as I have been able to learn since my residence in the country, the deaths from coca are not near as numerous, in proportion to those who use it, as those from opium, in China and other parts of the far East?
"Dr. Bronson said that an extract or alkaloid of coca, called cocaine, had recently come into use in Europe and America as an anæsthetic, for operations on the eye, and other sensitive parts of the human organization. The patient is fully conscious of what is going on, but does not experience the least pain. Its properties as a local anæsthetic were discovered in 1884, by Dr. Koller, of Vienna; and it is freely used by oculists in New York and elsewhere. It is a very costly substance, being worth some hundreds of dollars an ounce, but the quantity used for paralyzing the nerves of the eye during an operation is surprisingly small. One or two drops of a solution containing from two to four per cent. of cocaine are generally sufficient for a short operation, and twice or three times that quantity, at intervals of five or ten minutes, for a longer one.
"Thirty million pounds of coca are annually consumed in South America. The finest is grown in the Yungas district, in Bolivia, where it is cultivated somewhat as tea is cultivated in China. Its properties were known to the ancient Peruvians, and it was used in their religious ceremonies; it received divine honors, and under some of the Incas its use was reserved for the nobility. Even at this day the Indians sometimes put coca in the mouths of their dead, just as the ancient Greeks placed an obolus in the mouth of a corpse to insure its ferriage over the Styx. The miners of Peru throw quids of coca against the veins of silver, under the belief that it causes them to be more easily worked.
LLAMA.
"So much for coca. Another curiosity of Puno is the large number of llamas we see in the streets, either running at large or used as beasts of burden. The llama, guanaco, alpaca, and vicuna were 'the four sheep of the Incas,' according to Professor Orton; the first clothing the common people, the second the nobles, the third the royal governors, and the fourth the Incas. Llamas and alpacas are domesticated; guanacos and vicunas are wild. They all go in flocks, and, in their wild state, one of their number always keeps watch; if danger threatens he stamps his feet, and gives the alarm, and it must be a very swift pursuer that can overtake them.
"The four animals belong to the same family, and some naturalists say the llama is nothing more than the domesticated guanaco. The llama is found all through South America, from northern Peru to the Strait of Magellan; it has been well described as having the head of a camel, the body of a deer, the wool of a sheep, and the neigh of a horse. It prefers a cold climate to a warm one; in the torrid zone it lives at a high elevation, while on the cool plains of Patagonia, near the level of the sea, it is found in great numbers. In Patagonia it is not domesticated, but in Peru, Bolivia, and Chili it is used as a beast of burden; it is about three feet high at the shoulder, and its head five feet when the animal stands erect. It can carry a burden of not more than a hundred pounds, lives on very scanty food, endures cold without suffering, and requires no drink as long as it can find succulent herbage. The pens where the animals are shut up at night have no shelter against the cold winds, which they do not mind in the least, and they are said to require very little care from one year's end to another.
