COCA RESEMBLES OPIUM.

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thus maintain the weight of the body undiminished—so it is probably with coca. In the young and middle-aged it les sens the waste of the tissues, and thus enables a smaller supply of food to sustain the weight and strength of the body.

The coca leaf resembles that of hemp, in the narcotic quality of dilating the pupil, which opium does not possess. But, on the other hand, it resembles opium in the new strength it imparts to the worn and weary body. The Turkish courier, or the Cutchee horseman, under the influence of opium, reminds us of the Peruvian miner or muleteer who has plenty of coca. In spite of fatigue and exhaustion, both compel their failing limbs to new exertion, and, unconscious of new pain, accomplish most wonderful labours. And in the proneness of the coca-eater to a solitary life we recognise an influence of this herb similar to that which opium exercises upon those who have experienced its highest enjoyments. It is alone and in retirement that the Eastern opium-eater finds his greatest pleasure. And in our own less sunny climate the same inclination appears to exist. "Markets and theatres," says De Quincey, " are not the appropriate haunts of the opium-eater when in the divinest state incident to his enjoyment. In that state crowds become an oppression to him, music even too sensual and gross. He naturally seeks solitude and silence as indispensable conditions of those trances or profoundest reveries, which are the crown and consummation of what opium can do for human nature. At that time I often fell into these reveries on taking opium; and more than once it has happened to me on a summer night, when I have been at an open window, in a room from which I could overlook the sea at a mile below me, and could command a view of the

great town of L- at about the same distance, that I have sat from sunset to sunrise, motionless, and without wishing to move.'

This description recalls exactly the picture of the confirmed coquero reclining for hours beneath his sheltering tree, absorbed, abstracted, and heedless of all external things. Whether his apathy and phlegm ever approached to that of the coquero, the English Opium-eater does not inform us.

6°. CONSUMPTION OF COCA LEAF.-We have no accurate data from which to form an estimate of the actual weight of coca leaf collected and consumed in Bolivia and Peru. Poppig estimates the money value of the yearly produce to be about four and a half millions of Prussian dollars, which, at 1s. a pound, the price it yields to the grower, would make the annual produce nearly 15,000,000 lbs. This approximation is sufficient to show us its importance to the higher regions of South America, in an agricultural and commercial, as well as in a social point of view.

Dr. Weddell again, who has recently travelled in Bolivia, informs us that the province of Yongas, in Bolivia, in which the coca is much cultivated, alone produces 9,600,000 Spanish pounds. The total produce, therefore, is probably much beyond the 15,000,000 lbs. deduced from the statement of Pöppig.

The importance of the plant is shown also by another fact mentioned by the same traveller-that the revenue of the state of Bolivia, in 1850, amounted to ten and a half millions of francs, of which nine hundred thousand, or onetwelfth of the whole, is derived from the tax on coca. he told us the amount of the tax per pound, we should have been able to approximate more nearly to the total produce of the state of Bolivia.

Had

When we consider that eastward from Bolivia and Peru, the culture and use of coca have extended into parts of Brazil and to the banks of the Amazon, it will not appear exaggerated if we estimate the actual growth and consumption

.

CONSUMPTION OF COCA.

423

At 1s. a

of the dried coca-leaf at 30,000,000 lbs. a-year. pound, this is worth a million and a-half sterling; and at the average produce of 800 lbs. an acre, it implies the use of 37,000 acres of good and carefully cultivated land for the growth of this plant. We may estimate also that the chewing of coca is more or less indulged in among about ten millions of the human race.

19*

CHAPTER XXI.

THE NARCOTICS WE INDULGE IN.

THE THORN-APPLES, THE SIBERIAN FUNGUS, AND THE MINOR NARCOTICS.

The red thorn-apple; its use among the Indians of Peru; its remarkable effects; taken by the Indian priests; frenzy induced by it; used in the temples of the Andes and of Greece; Delphic oracles inspired by it; singular coincidence in priestly deceptions.-The common thorn-apple; its use in Europe for criminal purposes-In Russia, for giving headiness to beer; in India, to ardent spiritsHow it is employed by the poisoners of India-Spectral illusions occasioned by the use of it-Narcotic qualities of the leaves.--Chemical history of the thornapples. The poisonous daturin and the empyreumatic oil; their joint influence in smoking.-The Siberian fungus; how collected and used; its intoxicating effects; delusions created by it; its active principle escapes in the urine; may be again used repeatedly, and by different persons; Siberian custom.-The common puff-ball; narcotic qualities of its smoke when burning.-Chemistry of the poisonous fungi; they contain amanitin.-Empyreumatic oil of the burning puff-ball. -The minor narcotics: The emetic holly, the narcotic of Florida; how it is used. -The deadly nightshade; its remarkable effects; destruction of a Norwegian army in Scotland.-The common henbane.-The bearded darnel gives headiness to beer, and poisons bread.-Sweet gale; its use for giving bitterness to beer.Heather beer of the Picts and Dancs.-The rhododendrons, poisonous and narcotic. -The Azalea pontica gives its peculiar qualities to the Euxine or Trebizond honey. The andromedas and kalmias of North America act as narcotics-Poisoning by partridge flesh.-Narcotic effects of sweet odours on some constitutions.

XII. THE THORN-APPLES.-The history of the thornapples as familiar narcotics is no less interesting, and their effects upon the system not less remarkable, than those of

THE RED THORN-APPLE.

425

any of the substances I have hitherto described. Two species are known to be employed in different parts of the world.

Fig. 78.

10. THE RED THORN-APPLE (Datura sanguinea), fig. 73, is in use among the Indians of the Andes, by some tribes of whom the coca leaf, already described, is principally consumed. It grows on the less steep slopes of the Andean valleys, and is called by the natives Bovachero, or Yerba de huaca. The fruit of the plant is the part employed, and from it the Indians prepare a strong narcotic drink, which they call Tonga. By the use of this drink they believe that they are brought into commucation with the spirits of their forefathers. Von Tschudi had an opportunity of observing an Indian under the influence of this drug, and he thus describes its effects :

"Shortly after having Datura sanguinea-The Red Thorn-Apple.

swallowed the beverage,

Scale, one inch to nine inches.

he fell into a heavy stupor. He sat with his eyes vacantly fixed on the ground, his mouth convulsively closed, and his nostrils dilated. In the course of about a quarter of an hour his eyes began to roll, foam issued from his half-opened lips, and his whole body was agitated by frightful convulsions. These violent symptoms having subsided, à profound 2. sleep of several hours succeeded. In the evening, when I