“In April, 1859, Mr. Campbell despatched a native from La Paz to Tacna, a distance of 249 English miles, which the Indian accomplished in four days. He rested one day at Tacna, and set off the following morning on his return journey, in the course of which he had to cross a path 13,000 feet in height. It would seem that, throughout the whole of this immense journey on foot, he followed the Indian custom of taking no other sustenance than a little roasted maize and Coca leaves, which he carried in a little pouch at his side, and chewed from time to time.
“The mail goes four times a month from La Paz to Tacna, and usually weighs 25 lb., which the courier carries on his back, and delivers within some five or six days, without other nourishment than that already specified.”
According to Senor Fuentes,[18] “the incontestable facts which experience affords as to the virtues of Coca may be divided into two classes, those relating to healthy persons, and those concerning ailing or sickly individuals. It has been admitted that the Indians of the mountains, who, among the natives of Peru, are most given to the use of Coca, are these who endure the hardest labour, such as:—
“1. Mining operations. The mines are almost all situated in the coldest parts of the Cordilleras. There the Indians work night and day, the pickaxe or the shovel in their hand, to detach the minerals, which they carry on their shoulders through long and deep subterranean passages, or they stamp with their feet masses of mineral from which they have to extract the metal. All the rest they get during this incessant toil is to lie down, turn by turn, on a skin covered with a poncho to snatch a few moments of repose, and to chew their portion of Coca leaf.
“2. The postal service. Bearing a case of letters on their shoulders, they may be seen undertaking with celerity journeys of hundreds of miles, traversing, to shorten their route, deserts and rugged Cordilleras. These unfortunate Indians suffer from all the injuries of the rarefied air, which exercises a most severe effect on a half-naked man, obliged to traverse the rocks and deserts of the sierras or mountainous regions. His only shelter and chance of repose, when snow-storms surprise him or fatigue overcomes him, is to take refuge in some cavern or under some projection of rock, where, reclining on the frozen ground, he snatches a few hours of sleep.
“3. The occupation of shepherd. The Indian generally pastures his wool-bearing animals of the alpaca tribe on the bleak pampas, which produce scarcely anything but a coarse kind of grass, called locally ‘hichu.’ The rigour of the climate renders these mountain shepherds as black as Ethiopians.
“4. Irrigation. When the Indians are obliged to water their fields during the night, in the middle of the rigours of winter, and on the most elevated plateaux, they are often many hours knee-deep in water, and exposed like their comrades to the cutting blast of a cold and penetrating wind.
“For resisting all these fatigues and the inclemencies of the seasons, the Indians have no other food than a handful of maize, a few potatoes, and their pouch of Coca leaves. They never eat flesh unless it is given them, which is rarely, as they respect the lives of their flocks as their own.
“Dr. Ignacio Flores having seen an Indian of the tribe of the Canaris, who was employed in the postal service between Chuquisaca and La Paz in Bolivia, that is a distance of over 100 leagues, with no other provision with him than a few grains of roasted maize, a few cakes of chuno, or frost-dried potatoes, not weighing together two pounds, and his bag of Coca leaves, declared that there was not a monk or hermit in the world so austere or abstinent. This frugality, and this hardihood to fatigue, the very recital of which makes one shudder, have been attributed by many not to the use of Coca, but to the training and education, as it were, of the Indians. This assertion, however, may be easily rejected by having regard to the following facts:—
“1. The Indian has naturally a voracious appetite whenever he is brought into contact with any one generous enough to feed him.