Although but little known beyond the confines of its native country, Coca is beyond all doubt one of the most remarkable productions of the tropical zone.
The sultry valleys on the eastern slopes of the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes are the seat of the Erythroxylon Coca, which, like the coffee-tree, bears a lustrous green foliage, and white blossoms ripening into small scarlet berries. The leaves when brittle enough to break on being bent, are stripped from the plant, dried in the sun, and closely packed in sacks. The naked shrub soon gets covered with new foliage, and after three or four months its leaves are ready for a second plucking, though in some of the higher mountain-valleys it can only be stripped once a year. Like the coffee-tree, the coca-shrub thrives only in a damp situation, under shelter from the sun; and for this reason maize, which rapidly shoots up, is generally sown between the rows of the young plants.
The local consumption of coca is immense, as the Peruvian Indian reckons its habitual use among the prime necessaries of life, and is never seen without a leathern pouch filled with a provision of the leaves, and containing besides a small box of powdered unslaked lime. At least three times a day he rests from his work to chew his indispensable coca. Carefully taking a few leaves out of the bag, and removing their midribs, he first masticates them in the shape of a small ball, which is called an acullico; then repeatedly inserting a thin piece of moistened wood like a toothpick into the box of unslaked lime, he introduces the powder which remains attached to it into the acullico until the latter has acquired the requisite flavour. The saliva, which is abundantly secreted while chewing the pungent mixture, is mostly swallowed along with the green juice of the plant.
When the acullico is exhausted, another is immediately prepared, for one seldom suffices. The corrosive sharpness of the unslaked lime requires some caution, and an unskilled coca-chewer runs the risk of burning his lips, as, for instance, the celebrated traveller Tschudi, who, by the advice of his muleteer, while crossing the high mountain-passes of the Andes, attempted to make an acullico, and instead of strengthening himself as he expected, merely added excruciating pain to the fatigues of the journey.