he young shoots have attained the height of about eighteen
inches, they are transplanted and put down again at the distance of
about a foot apart from each other. Now as these little bushes require
a humid atmosphere, maize-plants are sown between the rows to protect
them from the sun. In other places arbours of palm-leaves are
constructed over the coca-plants. When no rain falls, they are watered
every five or six days. After about two and a half years of this
nursing, the coca-bush is ready for use, and it is the leaves alone that
are valuable. These are gathered with great care, just as the Chinese
gather the leaves of the tea-plant; and, as in China, women are
principally employed in this labour. The leaves are said to be ripe,
not when they have withered and turned brown, but at a period when they
are full-grown and become brittle. When this period arrives, they are
picked from the tree, and laid out on coarse woollen cloths to dry in
the sun. When dried, they remain of a pale green colour; but should
they get damp during the process, they become darker, and are then of
inferior quality, and sell for a less price. When fully dried, they are
carefully packed in bags and covered up with dry sand, and are thus
ready for the market. Their price, on the spot where the crop is
produced, is about one shilling English per pound. They are, therefore,
full as costly to produce as tea itself, although the coca-bush will
yield three crops of leaves in one year--that is, a crop every four
months; and one hundred plants will produce about an arroba (25 pounds)
at a crop. The coca-plant will continue to give fresh leaves for a long
period of years, unless attacked and destroyed by ants, which is not
unfrequently the case.

Now, why have I so minutely described the coca-bush? Because, that, in
the economy of the life of those Indians who inhabit the countries of
the Andes mountains, this curious plant plays a most important part.
Scarcely one of these people is to be met with who is not an eater of
coca--a "coquero." With them it is what the tea-tree is to the Chinese.
Indeed, it is a curious fact, that in all parts of the world some
stimulating vegetable is used by the human race. Tea in China; the
betel-leaf, and the nut of the areca palm, among the Southern Asiatics;
the poppy in the East; with tobacco, and many like things, in other
countries.

But the coca not only supplies the Indian with a solace to his care