Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/225

 holds with their groups of Indian servant girls. The term agriculture cannot be applied to this business; in this primitive country plough, spade, and hoe are unknown even by name. The people idle away most part of the time at their roças, and have no system when they do work, so that a family rarely produces more than is required for its own consumption.

The half-caste and Indian women, after middle age, are nearly all addicted to the use of Ypadú, the powdered leaves of a plant (Erythroxylon coca) which is well known as a product of the eastern parts of Peru, and is to the natives of these regions what opium is to the Turks and betel to the Malays. Persons who indulge in Ypadú at Ega are held in such abhorrence, that they keep the matter as secret as possible; so it is said, and no doubt with truth, that the slender result of the women's daily visits to their roças, is owing to their excessive use of this drug. They plant their little plots of the tree in retired nooks in the forest, and keep their stores of the powder in hiding-places near the huts which are built on each plantation. Taken in moderation, Ypadú has a stimulating and not injurious effect, but in excess it is very weakening, destroying the appetite, and producing in time great nervous exhaustion. I once had an opportunity of seeing it made at the house of a Marauá Indian on the banks of the Jutahí. The leaves were dried on a mandioca oven, and afterwards pounded in a very long and narrow wooden mortar. When about half pulverised, a number of the large leaves of the Cecropia palmata (candelabrum tree) were