The coca plant (Erythoxylon coca) grows at an elevation of between 5000 and 6000 feet above the level of the ocean, in the warm valleys of the eastern slopes of the Andes, where rain frequently falls. It is from four to six feet high, with straight and alternate branches. The leaves, which are of a light green, are alternate, and in form and size similar to tea leaves. The flowers, which are solitary, have a small yellowish white corolla. It requires careful cultivation. It is produced from seeds, and the plants are then transplanted into soil carefully weeded and broken up. It is found growing on terraces on the mountainsides, which will allow of but a single row of plants. At the end of eighteen months the plants yield their first harvest, and continue to yield for upwards of forty years. The green leaves, when picked, are carefully spread out in the sun to dry. The name of “coca” is bestowed on them only when they are dried and prepared for use.
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. The valleys, however, most suitable for its cultivation are reputed to be unhealthy.
So valuable was coca considered in the days of the Incas, that divine honours were paid to it, and it was especially the property of the sovereign. Even at the present day the miners of Peru throw a quid of coca against the hard veins of ore, under the belief that they are thereby more easily worked. The natives also sometimes put coca in the mouth of the dying man, believing that if he can taste the fragrant leaf it is a sure sign of his future happiness.
Its moderate use is considered wholesome; and European travellers who have chewed coca state that they could thus endure long abstinence from food without inconvenience, and that it enabled them to ascend precipitous mountainsides with a feeling of lightness and elasticity, and without losing breath.
Part 3—Chapter X.
Humming-Birds (Trochilidae) of the Cordilleras and Western Coast.
We should scarcely have expected to find the smallest specimens of the feathered tribe inhabiting the same region as the mighty, coarse-feeding condor; but whereas the latter pounces down on his carrion banquet into the plains below, the little humming-bird seeks his food from the bright flowers which clothe the mountainside, or the minute insects which fly amid them.
Humming-birds are found throughout the whole of the New World, from the borders of the great Canadian lakes, along the entire range of the Cordilleras, down to the shores of Tierra del Fuego; also in the West India Islands, and over the whole wide-extending plains watered by the Orinoco, the Amazon, and other great rivers which empty themselves into the Atlantic. The greater number of the species exist about the equator, and, as might be expected, diminish as we proceed either to the south or north.