CHAPTER VI

.

SCHERZER, FUENTES, AND OTHERS, ON COCA.

Carl Scherzer, who brought the supplies to Europe from which Niemann and Lossen, under Wöhler, first isolated Cocaine, narrates the following:[16]—

[Footnote 16: “The Voyage of the Novara,” by Carl Scherzer, vol. iii. p. 402, London, 1863.]

“A Scotchman named Campbell, who was settled as a merchant at Tacna in Bolivia, and with whom I travelled to Europe from Lima, informed me that a few years before, being engaged upon matters of urgent business, he had performed in one day a distance of 90 English miles on mule-back, and throughout that long distance had been accompanied by an Aymara Indian, who kept up easily with the mule, without other refreshment than a few grains of roasted maize and Coca leaves, which, mingled with undissolved chalk (? slaked lime), he chewed incessantly. On reaching the station where he had to pass the night, Mr. Campbell, though mounted on an excellent animal, found himself greatly fatigued; the guide, on the other hand, after he had stood on his head for a few minutes,[17] and had drunk a glass of brandy, set off without further delay on his homeward journey!

[Footnote 17: A custom, Scherzer says, of these Indians after long and fatiguing marches, which seems to be the result of an instinct, and teaches them how best to mitigate the pressure of the blood.]

“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:—

[Footnote 18: _Chemist and Druggist_, 1876, p. 155. Notes on Coca Leaf, by P. L. Simmonds, abstracted from “Mémoire sur le Coca de Pérou.” Par Manuel A. Fuentes (de Lima).]

“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.

“2. A great many Spaniards, who could not support the labour of the mines and the inclemency of the Cordillera, having taken to the regular use of Coca, have forthwith acquired the Herculean force of the Indians.

“3. When the natives give up the use of Coca, and change their ordinary food system, they lose that ancient vigour and power which enabled them to resist fatigue and the inclemency of the weather.

“4. Notwithstanding the rigorous prevention of the use of Coca in Tucuman, the habit of chewing the leaf is clandestinely practised, because it is alone found to give to the muleteers the power of resisting the rigours of the icy plateaux of Lipes, and of prolonged night watches to prevent the mules they are transporting to Peru from straying.

“5. During the prolonged siege which the rebel Indians carried on in 1781 against the town of La Paz in Bolivia, the inhabitants had no other food left than leather, unclean animals, &c., and having to watch at night in the trenches during a rigorous winter to repulse the attacks of the Indians, a great many took to the use of Coca, as the only means of averting this horrible famine.

“Passing now to the beneficial effects of Coca on the sick and invalid, facts which, Senor Fuentes asserts, experience has confirmed; it is said to strengthen the gums and preserve the teeth. Taken in the form of an infusion, like tea, it excites perspiration and soothes those who suffer from asthma. Taken either in infusion or chewed, it assists the functions of the stomach, removes obstructions, and cures gripes or colic. Applied externally in friction or plasters, it allays rheumatic pains caused by the cold.

“Our author further asserts that it cures intermittent fevers in the dose of a teaspoonful of sulphate of cocaine(?), and is a protection against syphilis. This last allegation is probable, seeing that an Indian is rarely met with afflicted with venereal diseases, so common among whites and negroes.”

In Western Brazil a preparation of the Coca leaf in powder is known as Ypadú or Ipadú. Martius says[19] “the powder of the dried leaves is notable from its wonderful effect on the nervous system, especially on the brain, as has been lately observed, and it should be received into the treasures of materia medica.”

[Footnote 19: “Systema Materia Medica Vegetabilis Braziliensis,” by C. F. P. de Martius. Leipsic: 1843.]

By R. Spruce,[20] Ipadú is described as he saw it used on the banks of the Rio Negro, an affluent of the Amazon; the powdered roasted(?) Coca leaves are mixed with a little tapioca and the ashes of Imbaúba (_Cecropia peltata_, &c.). He says:—“With a chew of Ipadú in his cheek an Indian will go two or three days” without food, and without “having any feeling or desire to sleep.”

The “quid of Coca” is frequently mentioned by Squier,[21] a recent American traveller in Peru, but he gives no details of its cultivation or use.

Fitzroy Cole[22] also describes the use of Coca in terms similar to those of Weddell, but he confounds it with _Theobroma Cacao_, which yields Cocoa. He says:—“The incredible fatigue endured by the Peruvian infantry on very spare diet, but with the regular use of Coca, the laborious toil of the Indian miner under similar circumstances throughout a long series of years, certainly afford sufficient ground for attributing to these Coca leaves the quality, not only of a temporary stimulant, but also of a strong nutritive principle.”

[Footnote 20: “Journal of a Voyage on the Amazon and Rio Negro,” Hooker’s Journal of Botany, Vol. v., 1853, p. 212.]

[Footnote 21: “Peru, Incidents of Travel and Exploration in the Land of the Incas.” London: 1877.]

[Footnote 22: “The Peruvians at Home,” by Geo. R. Fitzroy Cole. London: 1884.]

##