ark at the angles of the mouth. An inveterate _coquero_, or coca
chewer, is known at the first glance. His unsteady gait, his
yellow-colored skin, his dim and sunken eyes encircled by a purple ring,
his quivering lips and his general apathy, all bear evidence of the
baneful effects of the coca juice when taken in excess. All the mountain
Indians are addicted more or less to the practice of masticating coca.
Each man consumes, on the average, between an ounce and an ounce and a
half per day, and on festival days about double that quantity. The
owners of mines and plantations allow their laborers to suspend their
work three times a day for the _chacchar_, which usually occupies
upwards of a quarter of an hour; and after that they smoke a paper
cigar, which they allege crowns the zest of the coca mastication. He
who indulges for a time in the use of coca finds it difficult, indeed
almost impossible, to relinquish it. This fact I saw exemplified in
the cases of several persons of high respectability in Lima, who are
in the habit of retiring daily to a private apartment for the purpose
of masticating coca. They could not do this openly, because among the
refined class of Peruvians the chacchar is looked upon as a low and
vulgar practice, befitting only to the laboring Indians. Yet,
Europeans occasionally allow themselves to fall into this habit; and I
knew two in Lima, the one an Italian and the other a Biscayan, who
were confirmed coqueros in the strictest sense of the word. In Cerro
de Pasco there are societies having even Englishmen for their members,
which meet on certain evenings for the chacchar. In these places,
instead of lime or ashes, sugar is served along with the coca leaves.
A member of one of these clubs informed me that on the few first
trials the sugar was found very agreeable, but that afterwards the
palate required some more pungent ingredient.

The operation of the coca is similar to that of narcotics administered
in small doses. Its effects may be compared to those produced by the
thorn-apple rather than to those arising from opium. I have already
noticed the consequences resulting from drinking the decoction of the
datura.[98] In the inveterate coquero similar symptoms are observable,
but in a mitigated degree. I may mention one circumstance attending the
use of coca, which appears hitherto to have escaped notice: it is,
that after the mastication of a great quantity of coca the eye seems
unable to bear