COCA IN COMMERCE.
The Hon. Richard Gibbs, U.S. minister to Bolivia, for some years
resident at La Paz, gives a similar account to that of Weddell of the
cultivation of Coca at the present day.[29] He says the consumers of
Coca, both in Peru and in Bolivia, are the native races; the whites
seldom use it, except as an infusion, and then the first water is
thrown away as being too strong. The habitual consumers of it know
nothing of toothache, and have their teeth in good condition to a
great age. The Peruvian Government, he states, records and taxes a
production of over 15,000,000 lbs., and the Bolivian Government about
7,000,000 lbs. annually; of the latter about 55 per cent. is consumed
in Bolivia; the Argentine Republic and Chili about 15 per cent. each;
Peru, 10 per cent.; while about 5 per cent. is exported to Europe and
the United States. As “Coca is very easily damaged by the combined
effects of heat and moisture, it is, therefore, always stored in dry,
cool warehouses, and rarely handled or transported in damp weather or
during the rainy season. The rainy season is from January to April,
and, therefore, that stored on the west side of the coast range is
alone available for export during the rainy season. When exported it
is said that it usually starts in very good condition, and will reach
its destination in the same condition if carried in a cool, dry place.
Such transportation is always stipulated for on bills of lading, but
the proper precautions are generally neglected, and hence the worthless
condition in which it is often seen.”
[Footnote 29: Squibb’s Ephemeris, vol. ii. p. 790.]
Of the Coca imported into London, Liverpool, Havre, and Hamburg, some
comes in tin-lined cases containing two tambores, but most of the
large leaves (Bolivian variety) still arrive in rough canvas bales,
generally lined with waterproof tarpaulin, and weighing from 120 to
150 lbs. each, two of which form a load for a mule for transportation
through mountain passes or across the Andes for exportation. The bales
usually contain three, or sometimes only two, tightly packed tambores,
each weighing about 40 or 45 lbs. These latter have a canvas covering
over a banana leaf lining. Other bales contain from six to nine smaller
packages of about 16 to 20 lbs. each, wrapped round with a coarse
woollen fabric and large dock-like leaves. The small leaves (North
Peruvian) are usually either in closely-packed bales, containing 2 or
3 hundredweights, covered with canvas, then with tarpaulin, and again
with canvas, or else in loosely packed canvas “beds” about 6 feet
square by 1½ to 2 feet thick, containing brick-shaped packages, wrapped
in pieces of banana leaf, weighing from 1 to 3 lbs. each, and measuring
about 5 inches by 5 inches, and from 12 to 18 inches in length. The
larger leaves at times arrive in bales containing similar packages.
Cowley (quoted p. 9) seems to have been gifted with second sight, and
referred to the commerce of the present day; until a few years ago
it was quite unknown in the London drug market: even yet no reliable
statistics of our imports are obtainable.