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NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 449
Venezuela. Humboldt says: "A missionary seldom
travels without being provided with some prepared
seeds of the Cupana. The Indians scrape the
seeds, mix them with flour of cassava, envelop the
mass in plantain-leaves, and set it to ferment in
water, till it acquires a saffron-yellow
colour. This
yellow paste, dried in the sun and diluted in water,
is taken in the morning as a kind of tea. This
beverage is bitter and stomachic, but appeared to
me to have a very disagreeable taste." (Personal
Narrative, v. 278, Miss Williams's translation.)
It was at Javita, near the head of the Atabapo,
that Humboldt made trial of cupana. I first tasted
the cold infusion, prepared nearly in the same way,
except that no cassava had been added to the grated
seeds, I think at Tomo, on the Guainia, only two
days' journey from Javita, in 1853 ; and I afterwards
drank it frequently on the Atabapo and
Orinoco, where the inhabitants still take it com-
monly the first thing in a morning, on quitting their
hammocks, and consider it a preservative against
the malignant bilious fevers which are the scourge
o o
of that region. It is as bitter as rhubarb, and is
always drunk unsweetened, so that at first one finds
it absolutely repulsive ; but it soon ceases to be so,
and those who use it habitually get to like it much,
and to find it almost a necessary of life. When
the bowels are relaxed and coffee taken in the
morning, fasting excites too much peristaltic action,
then cupana is decidedly preferable, for it is less
irritating than coffee and has quite the same
stimulating effect on the nervous system.
Long before I saw cupana in Venezuela indeed,
ever since the end of 1849 I had been familiar with
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